North Korea said on Monday that the United States has decided to remove it from a list of states sponsoring terrorism - a crucial step towards the normalisation of relations between the two countries.The US decision came at a weekend meeting between the chief nuclear negotiators of the two countries in Geneva, a foreign ministry spokesman told the official Korean Central News Agency. “Both sides discussed the issue of taking practical measures to neutralise the existing nuclear facilities in the DPRK (North Korea) within this year and agreed on them”, the spokesman said. “In return for this the US decided to take such political and economic measures for compensation as delisting the DPRK as a terrorism sponsor and lifting all sanctions that have been applied according to the Trading with the Enemy Act”, he said. There was no immediate confirmation from the United States.