Responding to the Bush administration's removal of North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Malden) reiterated Thursday that North Korea is still prohibited from acquiring nuclear materials.
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President Bush announced this week that the U.S. had lifted trade and economic sanctions from North Korea in response to its pledge to halt its nuclear program. Markey said some interpretations in the six-party talks that reached the agreement suggested that removing Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism would allow North Korea to begin construction of light water nuclear reactors that North Korea has been allowed to build since 1994.

"I am very pleased that the North Koreans are providing, at long last, this declaration of their previous nuclear activities," Markey said in a statement. "Notwithstanding today's announcement, the Bush administration has made clear that even removal of North Korea from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list will not allow North Korea to resurrect the failed light water reactors deal from 1994. Any plan to transfer nuclear technology or material to North Korea ought to be completely off the table during the current negotiations," said Rep. Markey.

Markey, the co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation, said he added two provisions to the 2005 Energy Policy Act that prohibited both countries that were on state sponsors of terrorism list and those on the list as of Sept. 11, 2001 from legally obtaining nuclear material. Because North Korea was on the list on Sept. 11, 2001, those prohibitions should still apply.

"We should not disable North Korea's existing nuclear bomb factory only to build another one," Markey said. "I am glad that the Bush Administration has acknowledged that the legal barriers to doing so extend far beyond North Korea's listing as a State Sponsor of Terrorism," Markey said.

"North Korea has a proven track record as a nuclear weapons proliferator," he added, "and it simply cannot be trusted with such technologies and materials."