Seoul, Oct. 12 (AP): North Korea said today it would resume disabling its main nuclear facilities, hours after the US removed the communist country from a list of states that Washington says sponsor terrorism.

North Korea’s foreign ministry said it would again allow inspections by the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency at its Yongbyon nuclear complex to verify the disablement process, pledged under a 2007 disarmament-for-aid deal with the US and four other regional powers.

“We welcome the US which has honoured its commitment to delist (North Korea) as ‘a state sponsor of terrorism,”’ the ministry said in a statement carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea halted its nuclear disablement in mid-August in anger over what it called US delays in removing it from the terror list. The country has since taken steps towards reassembling its plutonium-producing facility and barred international inspectors from the site.

The US had said North Korea first had to allow verification of the declaration of its nuclear programmes it submitted in June before being removed from the terrorism blacklist. Yesterday, the US said North Korea had agreed to all of Washington’s nuclear inspection demands.

US officials said North Korea agreed to allow atomic experts to take samples and conduct forensic tests at all of its declared nuclear facilities and undeclared sites on mutual consent, and would permit them to verify that it has told the truth about transfers of nuclear technology and allegations it ran a separate secret uranium enrichment programme.