WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States has struck North Korea from a terror blacklist after saying Pyongyang agreed to steps to verify its nuclear disarmament and pledged to resume disabling its atomic plants.

The deal announced by the State Department Saturday aimed at reviving the historic six-party disarmament negotiations threatened with collapse just months before US President George W. Bush leaves office on January 20.

Angered at the US refusal to remove it from the blacklist, North Korea in the last few weeks moved toward restarting its nuclear reactor and other operations at Yongbyon.

But Sung Kim, the head of the State Department's Korea office, told a press briefing here that the "North Koreans have committed that the disablement activities in Yongbyon will resume immediately" now that it has been delisted.

He expected a statement shortly from Pyongyang.

Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday "rescinded the designation of North Korea as a state terror sponsor" after Pyongyang agreed to the disarmament verification steps.

Pyongyang had expected to be struck from the list weeks after it submitted a declaration in June of its nuclear activities, but Washington had insisted it agree to a verification regime first.

Washington appeared to strike a compromise by negotiating steps with North Korea that it says will form the basis of a full verification regime to be announced in the "near future."

McCormack welcomed the outcome of the verification talks which he said US negotiator Christopher Hill held in Pyongyang from October 1-3 on behalf of the four other parties - South Korea , China, Japan and Russia.

"Every element of verification that we sought is included in this package," McCormack told the briefing attended by Kim and other officials.

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 as well as interview nuclear program staff, US officials said.

However, visits to undeclared sites will require "mutual consent," they 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 suspected uranium enrichment and proliferation activities.

Analyst Joseph Cirincione welcomed the deal for including verification of suspected activities.

In its June declaration, North Korea did not answer allegations about shipping nuclear technology to Syria or uranium enrichment.

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.

Under the deal, the US officials said, experts from all six parties may participate in verification activities and the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will be consulted on them.

The delisting is symbolic as State Department officials said Pyongyang remains under numerous sanctions for a whole range of reasons and Washington retains "leverage" in the negotiations.

Cirincione said the delisting only "opens the door for US business dealings" with Pyongyang, but US officials said all US exports to North Korea are subject to licensing by the Commerce Department.

North Korea was added to the blacklist on January 20, 1988, following the bombing by its agents of a KAL plane on November 29, 1987 which killed all 115 on board.

The State Department says the North is not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since that bombing.

"We're getting something for nothing: taking them off the list they don't belong on," said Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation.

The deal on delisting comes after an intense series of telephone consultations between Rice and her partners in the negotiations -- and despite misgivings from Japan.

Japan has urged the United States, its main ally, not to delist North Korea, pressing first for more information on the fate of Japanese civilians who were kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s to train the regime's spies.

Bush has vowed to "strongly support Japan's position on the abduction issue," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Saturday.

Patricia McNerney, assistant secretary for international security and non-proliferation, told reporters that verifying the June declaration will be "a serious challenge" as North Korea is "the most secret and opaque regime in the entire world."

The Yongbyon complex was shut down in July 2007 under an aid-for-disarmament deal agreed by the six parties after the North staged its first nuclear weapons test in October 2006.

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