The revision, expected to be passed by the full House within weeks, came as exemptions to existing regulations that impose aid and trade sanctions on countries designated as non-nuclear states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if they conduct nuclear testing.

North Korea, which carried out a nuclear experiment in October 2006, is disabling its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon under a six-party deal struck last year in exchange for energy aid and diplomatic benefits.

The United States has said it will delist Pyongyang as a state sponsor of terrorism and exempt it from the Trading with the Enemy Act as the process of denuclearization moves forward.

The revision would also oblige the U.S. president to prove to Congress that North Korea is not providing nuclear weapons technology to Syria or Iran in the event of removal of Pyongyang from the terror blacklist.

Also Wednesday, the same House panel approved a bill that would effectively press China to help resettle North Korean refugees in the United States in lieu of forcibly returning them to their country.

The bill is to revise the North Korean Human Rights Act, enacted in 2004 with the goal of improving human rights conditions in North Korea, including those in relation to the long-standing issue of Pyongyang's kidnapping of Japanese nationals.

The bill makes no reference to China as one such foreign government but says China is "conducting an increasingly aggressive campaign to locate and forcibly return border-crossers to North Korea" ahead of the Beijing Olympics.