WASHINGTON - THE United States boasted ON Saturday it got 'every single thing' it wanted from North Korea on steps to verify its nuclear disarmament, in return for striking Pyongyang from a terrorism blacklist.

The deal allows for outside experts to visit both declared and undeclared sites in North Korea, take and remove samples and equipment for analysis, view documents and interview nuclear programme staff, US officials said.

'Regrettable': Japan TOKYO - JAPANESE Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said a US decision to remove North Korea from a terrorism blacklist was 'extremely regrettable,' Japanese media reported on Sunday. 'It's extremely regrettable, and I believe abductions amount to terrorist acts,' Mr Nakagawa told Japanese reporters in Washington at the Group of Seven meeting of finance ministers. ... more

They said the measures - which form part of a verification protocol to be adopted in the 'near future' - also apply to the plutonium programmes, as well as to the suspected uranium enrichment and proliferation programmes.

North Korea has still not commented on - let alone confirmed - the deal but US officials were jubilant.

'Every element of verification that we sought is included in this package,' said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack as he announced North Korea had been removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

'Every single thing that we sought going in is part of this package.'

Mr McCormack paid tribute to the work of Mr Christopher Hill, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs who led the negotiations with North Korea during a visit to Pyongyang October 1-3.

Nuclear non-proliferation analyst Joseph Cirincione, after reading reports about the deal, was surprised at the range of concessions that Mr Hill had won on verification, even if he said Mr McCormack's claim was slightly exaggerated.

'I guess they got everything but one. Pretty good, pretty good deal,' said Mr Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation.

The United States pushed for unrestricted access to declared and undeclared sites, but North Korea balked, Mr Cirincione told AFP in a telephone interview.

According to a summary of the agreement released by the State Department, 'experts will have access to all declared facilities and, based on mutual consent, to undeclared sites'.

The Ploughshares Fund executive said he was surprised to hear the deal allows for experts to take samples back to the United States, saying Pyongyang had wanted samples to be analysed in a laboratory set up in North Korea.

Mr Cirincione said he was all the more pleased with the agreement because the negotiations had virtually collapsed in the last few weeks amid a US push for what he called 'unprecedented inspection authority'.

North Korea had accused Washington of violating its dignity by seeking Iraq-style 'house searches' as part of a rigid verification protocol.

The non-proliferation analyst said it was also 'significant' that North Korea appears to have agreed to a verification protocol that will apply to suspected uranium enrichment and proliferation activities.

'Diplomatically, this is what's important: 'you've agreed to tell us about this programme, you've agreed that we can learn about your activities, you've agreed that we can verify your activities,'' Mr Cirincione said.

North Korea did not answer allegations about proliferation or uranium enrichment in a June declaration of its nuclear activities that drew fire from US hardliners who want to isolate rather than negotiate with North Korea.

It merely acknowledged in a separate document US concerns about the uranium and proliferation issues and assured it was not engaged in such activities and would not be involved in them in the future.

The analyst said he was less concerned about the suspected uranium programme than about Pyongyang's shipping nuclear technology to countries like Syria.

Ms Paula DeSutter, the US assistant secretary for compliance, verification and implementation, acknowledged that the whole verification process would last 'probably years' and that it will not be an easy path.

'This is going to be a bumpy road because it really hasn't ever been traveled in North Korea,' Ms DeSutter told a press briefing. -- AFP