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Before it strikes North Korea from a list of "state sponsors of terrorism," the U.S. administration must ensure that North Korea does not transfer nuclear materials and missiles to foreign countries, a draft resolution submitted to the U.S. Senate demands.
Four senators -- Republicans Sam Brownback, Chuck Grassley and Jon Kyl and independent Joseph Lieberman on Tuesday submitted the draft resolution. It urges the government to insist that North Korea resolves the issue of Japanese victims of abductions and shut down the Central Committee Bureau 39 of the Korean Workers' Party, an agency known to be in charge of printing counterfeit U.S. dollars and laundering money, before it strikes the North off the list.
It also urges North Korea to present clear evidence proving it has not been involved in any terrorist acts since the blowup of a Korean Air plane in 1987, the murder of Choi Duck-keun, then 54, a consul at the South Korean Consulate-General in Vladivostok, Russia in 1996, and the assassination of Lee Han-young, a nephew of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's ex-wife, in 1997.
This wording essentially expresses opposition to the Bush administration's moves to strike North Korea from the list. The matter is expected to come under heated debate unless North Korea disables its nuclear facilities and declares all nuclear programs and stockpiles by the end of the year, as it has pledged.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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