SEOUL: North Korea said on Sunday it will resume disabling its main nuclear facilities, hours after the United States removed the communist country from a list of states that Washington says sponsor terrorism.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry said it will again allow inspections by the U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Agency at its Yongbyon nuclear complex to verify the disablement process, pledged under a 2007 disarmament-for-aid deal with the U.S. and four other regional powers.

“We welcome the U.S. which has honored its commitment to delist (North Korea) as 'a state sponsor of terrorism,''' the ministry said in a statement carried by the country's official Korean News Agency.

North Korea halted its nuclear disablement in mid-August in anger over what it called U.S. delays in removing it from the terror list. The country has since taken steps toward reassembling its plutonium-producing facility and barred international inspectors from the site.

The U.S. had said North Korea first had to allow verification of the declaration of its nuclear programs it submitted in June before being removed from the terrorism blacklist. On Saturday, the U.S. said the North had agreed to all of Washington's nuclear inspection demands.

U.S. officials said North Korea agreed to allow atomic experts to take samples and conduct forensic tests at all of its declared nuclear facilities and undeclared sites on mutual consent, and would permit them to verify that it has told the truth about transfers of nuclear technology and allegations it ran a separate secret uranium enrichment program.

U.S. officials, however, said North Korea could again be placed on the blacklist if it doesn't allow the inspections. North Korea said Sunday that prospects for its disarmament depend on whether the U.S. delisting actually takes effect and the North receives the remaining international aid promised it under the 2007 disarmament deal.

Under that agreement with the U.S., South Korea, China, Russia and Japan, North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in return for diplomatic concessions and the equivalent of 1 million tons of oil aid. North Korea has complained that it completed eight out of 11 key disablement procedures, but has only received half of the aid it was promised.