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 program staff, US officials said.

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

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 that North Korea had been removed from the US terrorism blacklist.

"Every single thing that we sought going in is part of this package," he told reporters.

McCormack paid tribute to the work of 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 news reports about the deal, was surprised at the range of concessions Hill had won on verification, even if he said McCormack's claim was slightly exaggerated.

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

US negotiators had initially pushed for unrestricted access to both declared and undeclared sites, but North Korea balked, 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 site."

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 analyzed in a laboratory set up in North Korea.

Cirincione 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 program, you've agreed that we can learn about your activities, you've agreed that we can verify your activities'," 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 program than about Pyongyang's shipping nuclear technology to countries like Syria.

Paula DeSutter, asistant 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," DeSutter told a press briefing.

Japan minister says US-NKorea deal 'regrettable'
Japan's government struggled to respond Sunday to a US decision taking North Korea off its terrorism blacklist, with a senior minister saying the step was "extremely regrettable."

Washington's decision was aimed at saving a crumbling nuclear disarmament deal, but Tokyo had been urging it not to delist the communist state pending progress on a dispute over Japanese kidnapped by the North.

"It's extremely regrettable, and I believe abductions amount to terrorist acts," Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa told Japanese reporters in Washington where he was attending a Group of Seven meeting of finance ministers.

He added: "I don't think the United States made the decision after a close consultation with its ally Japan."

But Prime Minister Taro Aso downplayed Nakagawa's comments, saying the US step would not affect talks on resolving the abductions dispute.

He said it was "one method of trying to move forward the issue, which has been deadlocked."

"We will be able to have sufficient talks on the abduction issue," he said. "We don't lose our diplomatic leverage."

Aso said he had spoken with US President George W. Bush by telephone, and "he mentioned the abduction issue before I raised the issue. I understand that this means the United States will deal with the issue squarely."

Japan has been pressing for more information on the fate of its civilians kidnapped by the North in the 1970s and 1980s to train the communist regime's spies.

The issue remains a highly sensitive one in Japan, and Tokyo has taken the hardest line in the six-nation talks on North Korean denuclearisation, which group the two Koreas, Russia and host China as well as the United States.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told reporters the government would "work determinedly" to ensure the abductions dispute would not be left out of future six-nation talks.

In its announcement Saturday, the US State Department said North Korea was being taken off the list of states that sponsor terrorism because an agreement had been reached on steps to verify Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament.

The North had hoped to be struck from the list weeks after it submitted a declaration in June of its nuclear activities as part of a landmark 2007 deal, but Washington had insisted it agree to a verification regime first.

Angered at the delay, North Korea in the last few weeks barred UN nuclear inspectors and moved toward restarting the reactor and other operations at its main Yongbyon complex.

Japan's foreign ministry said Bush had reassured Aso that Washington would support Tokyo's position on the abductions issue.

But Masao Okonogi, an export on North Korea at Keio University, said it was "nonsense" to suggest Washington would make it a priority.

"Japan needs to change its strategy of relying on US pressure on North Korea to resolve the abduction issue," said Okonogi.

"What the United States fear most is an action by North Korea to further accumulate its stock of plutonium and its proliferation to a third country, a direct threat to Americans," he told AFP.

Sakie Yokota, whose daughter was abducted when she was 14 by North Korean agents, said she was "very disapppointed" at the US action. "The abduction is the same issue as the nuclear issue in terms of disregarding human lives."

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