North Korea has told the United States that it no longer wishes to be removed from its terrorism list.

From the New York Times:

North Korea said Friday that it no longer wished to be removed from the United States’ terrorism blacklist, signaling that it is hardening its stance amid reports that its leader, Kim Jong-il, may be seriously ill.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry also confirmed what the United States and South Korea have said already: it has begun to reassemble a nuclear complex that can produce weapons-grade plutonium.

“We neither wish nor expect to be delisted as a ‘state sponsor of terrorism,’ ” the North’s state-run news agency, KCNA, quoted a ministry spokesman as saying. “We can go our own way.”

Bravado is North Korea’s common negotiating tactic. Still, the statement bodes ill for Washington’s efforts to keep the nuclear complex, Yongbyon, north of the capital, Pyongyang, disabled.