NKorea grateful to US for helping sailors in Somali pirate standoff

North Korea expressed rare gratitude Thursday to the U.S. for helping end a high-seas standoff with Somali pirates, the latest sign of warming ties between the longtime foes fostered by progress on Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament.

"The pirates' recent armed attack on our trading ship was a grave terrorist act perpetrated against a peaceful ship," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said. "We feel grateful to the United States for its assistance given to our crewmen."

The cooperation between the countries at sea was unprecedented, historians said.

The last notable maritime encounter between North Korea and the U.S. was in 1968 when the North seized the USS Pueblo while it was on an intelligence-gathering mission off the country's coast and held 82 Americans as prisoners of war for 11 months.

The vessel is the only active-duty U.S. warship in the hands of a foreign power, and remains on display as a tourist attraction in the North Korean capital.

In a dramatic turnabout to that event nearly four decades later, it was the U.S. Navy that came to the aid of the North Korean cargo ship Dai Hong Dan.

KCNA said Thursday that the USS James E. Williams and a helicopter rushed to the scene and "helped the (North Korean) sailors in fighting, threatening the pirates" via radio in the standoff, also noting that an American surgeon treated wounded crew.

Seven pirates boarded the vessel Oct. 29 disguised as guards while it was in port in Mogadishu, Somalia, demanding US$15,000 (euro10,189) and that they take them wherever they wanted, according to the unusually detailed report from KCNA, the North's main organ for delivering propaganda to the outside world.

The North Koreans fought back after seizing weapons from two pirates guarding the ship's engine room — eventually gaining control of their vessel 20 hours after being taken captive and leaving one pirate dead, KCNA said.

"As shown by our crewmen through their actions, it is the disposition of the Korean people to fight out any terrorist act on the spot though they are empty-handed," the report said.

The U.S. Navy has said it boarded the North Korean ship to provide medical assistance at the crew's invitation after they had already overpowered all pirates.

Washington has downplayed the significance of its assistance the North as anything unusual — even though it remains technically at war with Pyongyang since the Korean War ended in a 1953 cease-fire. The U.S. led a U.N.-authorized coalition in the three-year conflict, and 28,000 American troops remain deployed in South Korea.

"We fulfilled our responsibilities as a responsible member of international maritime organizations and treaties and responded to a distress signal on the high seas," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Thursday in response to the North's gratitude.

It was the second time in about two months for Pyongyang to thank Washington — a rare move seen as reflecting the friendly mood between the two countries spawned by progress in their prolonged standoff over the North's nuclear weapons programs.

In September, the North's Foreign Ministry issued a statement thanking the U.S. for providing emergency relief supplies after the severest floods in decades devastated the impoverished nation.

Pyongyang shut down its sole functioning nuclear reactor in July under a February deal with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia in exchange for political and economic concessions. It is now moving to disable is atomic facilities by year-end under watch of U.S. experts, meaning they will not be able to be quickly restarted.

One of its key demands in exchange for cooperating on disarmament has been removal from a U.S. blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism.

In the Thursday report on the piracy incident, the first public mention by the North of the episode, Pyongyang sought to further advance such hopes — saying the maritime collaboration as a "symbol of cooperation" between the two countries "in the struggle against terrorism."

"It is the consistent principled stand of the (North Korean) government to oppose all sorts of terrorism," KCNA said. "We will continue to render international cooperation in the fight against terrorism, in the future, too."

North Korea was put on the terror list for involvement in the 1987 bombing of a South Korean civilian jet that killed all 115 people aboard.