North Korea seeks U.S. assurances

SEOUL, June 24 (UPI) -- North Korea is making another push for U.S. assurance on the terrorist list issue amid efforts to restart the six-party talks on its denuclearization.

Pyongyang -- which has said it will blow up the cooling tower of its main Yongbyon nuclear facility to show it is seriousness about nuclear disarmament -- wants a "final" U.S. assurance to remove it from Washington's list of terrorism-sponsors as promised, a South Korean official said Tuesday, Yonhap news agency reported.

Other members in the six-party effort are Russia, China and Japan.

The official told Yonhap the North wants such a U.S. assurance before fixing a date for the six-party talks, which U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill has said are imminent.

Hill was quoted as saying the North's making a declaration of all its nuclear assets, which have held up the talks, also are imminent. That declaration could come by Thursday.

The South Korean official said China, which chairs the six-way talks, has not proposed a date yet for the resumption of the talks to the other parties, the Yonhap report said.

"North Korea's position is that it is hard to certainly trust the U.S. promise," the official said, as any proposal to take it off the list would require approval in Congress.

But the official also said the talks to be held in Beijing could resume next month.