Washington - The United States has agreed to remove North Korea from its terrorism blacklist in exchange for that country's agreement to allow international inspectors access to its nuclear programs, the US State Department announced Saturday.

The announcement, broadcast by CNN, is another step in US efforts to wean North Korea off its nuclear programmes. That has been one of the goals of six party negotiations between the two countries, plus Russia, China, South Korea and Japan.

North Korea "has agreed to a series of verification measures," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a press conference. "The next step is living up to a key tenet of the six party agreement."

On Friday, South Korean media cited a high-ranking South Korean government official about a compromise between North Korea and United States where by North Korea would be willing to continue work to disable its nuclear weapons facilities, while the US would remove the country from its list of supporters of terrorism earlier than planned.

A deal on this was agreed during talks between North Korean officials and chief US nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill last week in Pyongyang, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported.

On Thursday, the North Korean nuclear issue came to the fore when Pyongyang banned inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from all facilities at its nuclear complex in Yongbyon. (dpa)