Seoul:  North Korea expressed its condolences over the death of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, the communist nation's official news agency reported today.

The North's No. 2 leader and ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam sent a message to Pakistan s President Pervez Musharraf yesterday, expressing "deep condolences" over Bhutto s "sudden demise," the Korean Central News Agency reported.

The brief two-sentence dispatch, however, stopped short of condemning terrorism.

North Korea was put on the US list of states sponsoring terrorism for allegedly masterminding the 1987 bombing of a South Korean jetliner that killed all 115 people aboard.

Removal from the list was offered as an incentive for Pyongyang to disable its nuclear facilities and declare all nuclear programs toward their dismantlement.

The North promised to fulfil the commitments by year's end, but the deadline appears unlikely to be met because Pyongyang and Washington have been at odds over US accusations that the North had pursued a uranium enrichment program.

The nuclear standoff flared in late 2002 after the US said the North had admitted to running a secret uranium-based atomic bomb program in violation of international agreements. The North has denied the charge.

Source : PTI