The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, New York

The United States and North Korea held talks Friday to break a deadlock over measures to verify Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program that could pave the way for removing the hardline communist state from a terrorism blacklist.

The talks in New York between Sung Kim, the State Department's top Korea expert, and North Korean officials were a follow-up to a meeting held about three weeks ago in Beijing over verification of the North's nuclear program declared in June, officials said.

"Obviously, they are going to talk about the six-party talks, obviously recent discussions about the verification package, which we have been calling on the North Koreans to produce," said State Department spokesman Robert Wood before the talks. Asked whether Pyongyang was set to agree on a proposed verification protocol, Wood said Sung Kim was "going to assess where things are with North Korea in his conversations with North Korean officials.

"The US government wants to see this verification package as soon as possible so that we can move forward with this delisting," he added. Washington has said it would remove North Korea from the State Sponsors of Terrorist List if Pyongyang agreed to a comprehensive verification protocol proposed at the last six-nation talks aimed at disbanding the state's atomic weapons arsenal.

But Pyongyang wanted the United States to remove it from the blacklist first as part of what it called an "action-for-action" plan.