hankyoreh

he removal of North Korea from the U.S. list of states sponsoring terrorism, one of the terms said to be in the denuclearization agreement to be announced later this week, is a 45-day process that the U.S. president must initiate.

North Korea was placed on the list on Jan. 20, 1988, less than two months after the bombing of a South Korean passenger jet over the Andaman Sea near Burma. Pyongyang's agents were accused of the Nov. 28, 1987 bombing that killed everyone aboard, including 11 crew members and 104 passengers.

Four other governments are also on the list -- Syria since December 1979, Cuba since March 1982, Iran since January 1984, and Sudan since August 1993. Iraq was removed in 2004 after its government headed by then-President Saddam Hussein was toppled, and South Yemen was de-listed when it merged with North Yemen.

Libya was the last country to be taken off the list, made official in June last year.

The designation is based on three different provisions -- the Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Export Control Act, and the Export Administration Act of 1979. Of the three, it is Section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act that lays out the key sanctions on North Korea and the steps for its removal from the list.

Based on this section, the International Financial Institutions Act requires the United States to oppose any loan or funds from the world's financial bodies going to a country designated as a sponsor of terrorism.

In short, the U.S., which yields heavy influence in institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, must oppose any assistance going from them to North Korea.

Although not required, the U.S. could also construe that the restrictions should apply to North Korea's attempted membership in such financial institutions.

Paragraph 4 of Section 6(j) prohibits removing a country from the terrorism list unless the president first submits a report to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Senate committees on banking, housing and urban affairs and foreign relations.

When a different government is in power from the one when the designation took place, the president must submit a report to "certify" that there has been a fundamental change in the leadership and policies of the government concerned, that the new government is not supporting international terrorism, and that it has assured that it will not support such acts in the future.

But when the same government is in power, as is the case with North Korea, the president's report must "justify" that the government concerned has not provided support for international terrorism for the last six months, and that the government has provided assurance that it will not support terrorist acts in the future.

The annual U.S. State Department report on the designated nations says North Korea is not known to have engaged in terrorism acts since the 1987 airline bombing.

The report has to be submitted at least 45 days before the proposed rescission would take effect, after which the secretary of state can rescind the designation. The rescission can take place at any time of the year.

The Congress can choose to either let the president's proposal take effect, or pass legislation to block it.

In the case of Libya, which was designated in 1979, the rescission was completed two and half years after the country announced in December 2003 its decision to abandon its missiles and other weapons-of-mass-destruction programs.

It has since agreed to compensate families of the 270 victims who died in the explosion of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in December 1988.

Also important was Libya's "excellent" cooperation with the U.S.

in response to new global terrorist threats, as described by the State Department.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 (Yonhap)