Last year diplomats from Russia, the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and North Korea agreed it was essential to establish trust between all partners in dialogue in order to reach the final goal of the talks. For their part, the Americans promised to launch in the U.S. Congress the process of dropping North Korea from a list of countries supporting terrorism, and eliminating it from the restrictions of the Trading with the Enemy Act. In turn, Pyongyang was supposed to present a declaration listing all of North Korea's nuclear installations and programs by Dec. 31, 2007.

But this was achieved only recently, because the United States and North Korea could not agree on how complete this list should be. At first, the United States insisted the declaration should reflect the number of the available nuclear weapons -- North Korea announced its successful nuclear tests in October 2006 -- and demanded North Korea give a clear answer to the question of whether it had supplied Syria with nuclear technologies.

In a bid to get things moving on the eve of the presidential elections, the United States made a concession and agreed to resume the discussion of the number of North Korea's nuclear weapons and its nuclear contacts with other countries at subsequent stages.

U.S. sanctions against North Korea have been in force for almost six decades. They were imposed after the start of the three-year Korean War in 1950. Formally, the war is still not over because in 1953 the two sides only signed a truce agreement, and Washington turned a deaf ear to North Korea's appeals to replace it with a peace treaty.

Since these times, North Korea has been considered an American "enemy," and the United States keeps an almost 30,000-strong contingent in South Korea to offset the North Korean army.

The United States blacklisted North Korea as a terrorist state after the mysterious incident with a South Korean passenger plane that exploded over the Andaman Sea in 1987. South Korea accused North Korea of staging an act of terror on the eve of the Seoul Olympics, and North Korea shot back.

The United States will start the process of removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and lifting trade and financial restrictions in the near future. It will take 45 days to complete this process.

Analysts believe this will give North Korea big opportunities in foreign trade and help it break long-term international isolation.

--

(Next: The diplomatic logic behind North Korea's development of nuclear weapons)

--

(Ivan Zakharchenko is an international commentator for RIA Novosti. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)

--

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)