South Korea says regrettable if North atom list incomplete

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said on Thursday it would be regrettable if North Korea did not fully account for its atomic weapons in its declaration of its nuclear activities.

North Korea is expected to hand China a long-delayed account of its shadowy nuclear activities on Thursday, a senior Chinese diplomat said, a step that could see it removed from Washington's list of terrorist states.

"Even if the declaration has a report on the substantive issue of the amount of plutonium extracted, it would be regrettable if the matter of nuclear weapons is not accounted for in full," Yu told a news conference.

Yu added the declaration would be a positive step toward completely ridding nuclear activities from the Korean peninsula.

North Korea is expected to demolish the cooling tower of its Soviet-era nuclear reactor on Friday, Yu said.

The declaration is part of a six-country deal by South and North Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China on ending the North's nuclear programs in return for economic and political incentives.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Jon Herskovitz)