North Korea has lashed out at the United States for again designating the North as a state sponsor of terrorism.

In a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency Monday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman insisted Pyongyang has no past record of terrorism.

The spokesman said the recent U.S. move shows how obsessed it is about overthrowing the North's regime.

North Korea continues to remain on the U.S. State Department's annual Country Report on Terrorism 2004 along with Iran, Cuba, Syria, Libya and Sudan.

The report, released on Wednesday, said that even though the communist state is not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987, the abduction of Japanese nationals during the 1980s by North Korean agents was an act of terrorism.