The US decision to remove nuclear-armed North Korea from a terrorist blacklist has angered key Asian ally Japan and may stoke sentiment in Tokyo for developing its own atomic weapons capability, US experts warn.
Japan is angry that North Korea was removed from the US state sponsors of terrorism list last week despite Pyongyang's refusal to fully account for the fate of Japanese civilians it kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s.

Despite telephone reassurances by US President George W. Bush, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso publicly criticized the move and has vowed against providing any aid to North Korea unless the abductee issue was resolved.

Japan's main opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa said the half century Japan-US alliance "isn't really an alliance."

"Clearly, Tokyo feels abandoned on what it sees as its primary foreign policy objective -- progress on the abductee issue," said Bruce Klingner, a former CIA officer who monitored North Korean issues.

Klingner, now an Asian expert at the Heritage Foundation, charged that Washington had reneged its promise of stronger US support on resolving Japan's abductee concerns, including a "personal commitment" by Bush to then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

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