N. Korea wants U.S. to end status as a terrorist state

By Jun Kwan-woo

SEOUL (AFP): North Korea is expected to intensify efforts to shed its pariah status as a terrorist nation during talks with the United States this week aimed at improving their hostile ties, analysts here said.

Experts will train their attention not only on the main talks in New York, starting Tuesday, but also on sideline issues including North Korea's demand that it be removed from a U.S. list of state terrorism sponsors.

Kim Sung-han, a fellow of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS) in Seoul, said the meeting would provide the first expert-level forum for Washington and Pyongyang to tackle the tricky issue.

"North Korea has been, and will be, displaying great tenacity in its call to be unshackled from the list of terrorist states," Kim said.

The U.S.-North Korean talks are aimed mainly at finalizing preparations for an agreed landmark visit to the United States by a senior Pyongyang official, U.S. officials have said, adding that the watershed visit was "on track."

U.S. special envoy to Korean peace talks Charles Kartman and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan will lead their respective teams at the main talks on the visit.

But the thorny issue of North Korea's terrorist status -- imposed by Washington in early 1988 after the blowing up of a South Korean airliner, apparently by North Korean agents -- will also be discussed in detail.

U.S. Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Michael Sheehan, will head Washington's side in separate discussions on terrorism aimed at smoothing the path towards a diplomatic thaw after a half century of hostility.

At the past two rounds of talks between the two sides in Berlin in November and January, Seoul officials said, the North demanded that the United States "create a favorable atmosphere" for the planned high-level visit.

That planned trip by a senior Pyongyang official is seen here as a critical first concrete step towards normalizing ties between the two enemies which fought each other in the 1950-1953 Korean War.

IFANS' researcher Kim said that the U.S. removal of North Korea from the group of terrorism-backing states could pave the way for the communist state to become "a normal state" in the world community.

"Removing the North from the list would have a spill-over effect on improving its relations with other Western states," he said.

But the Stalinist nation's real interest lingers on practical benefits resulting from freeing the communist state from the pariah status.

The U.S. listing of North Korea as a terrorism sponsor has been an effective tool to block international financial institutions from providing cash loans it desperately needs to resurrect its economy.

The United States, as a key executive board member at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund, has great influence on deciding whether to offer commercial loans.

North Korea watchers here say that North Korea's pariah status has made it very difficult it to resurrect its tattered economy, hit by 10 years of decline following the collapse of the ex- Soviet Union and natural disasters.

But expectations on both sides of making major progress in New York on the terrorism issue remain low as Washington prepares to issue its new list in April.

"On the scale of 10, the chances for reaching a breakthrough will be below five," Kim said, adding that the bargaining would be tough, amid high North Korean expectations and pressure from the U.S. Congress not to go soft on Pyongyang.

"In order for that to occur by April, a miracle would have to happen," a U.S. official said in Washington. "I don't want to rule out the possibility of divine intervention but I don't expect it."

North Korea remains one of only seven U.S.-designated state sponsors of terrorism -- along with Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Sudan.