N. Korea lifts ban on U.N. nuclear inspectors

Negotiating ploy?
That suggested that the North's threat to stop dismantling its nuclear program and restart it was a negotiating ploy meant to wrest concessions from the five countries engaging the reclusive communist regime on the issue.

North Korea stopped scrapping its nuclear program in mid-August in anger over Washington's failure to remove it from the terror list and began moves toward restarting its plutonium-producing facility. The U.S. had said North Korea first had to allow verification of the declaration of its nuclear programs it submitted in June.

In delisting North Korea on Saturday, Washington said Pyongyang had agreed to all its nuclear inspection demands.

The delisting — and the North's return to disabling its nuclear facilities — will likely lead to a resumption of the stalled six-party talks between North Korea, U.S., Russia, China, South Korea and Japan.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the resolution of the dispute. His spokeswoman, Michelle Montas, said Ban considered it "another step towards a verifiable non-nuclear Korean Peninsula."

North Korea alarmed the world in 2006 by setting of a test nuclear blast. It then agreed to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for energy aid and other concessions.

The regime began disabling its nuclear processing plant in Yongbyon in November, and blew up a cooling tower in June in a dramatic display of its determination to carry out the process.

Just steps away from completing the second phase of the three-part process, Pyongyang abruptly reversed course and stopped disabling the plant.

With the international standoff apparently ending, South Korea said Monday it was considering expanding cross-border projects, including food aid to the impoverished North.

Relations between the divided Koreas have worsened since a conservative, pro-U.S. government was inaugurated in Seoul in February with a pledge to get tougher on the North. Pyongyang has cut off government-level contacts with the South in retaliation.

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