North Korea turned over a long-awaited inventory of its nuclear program on Thursday as part of a deal that will allow the lifting of some U.S. sanctions.
President Bush will make a statement regarding sanctions this morning. He is expected to announce that North Korea should be removed from a State Department list of terror-sponsoring nations and from the countries blacklisted under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
In turn, North Korea is supposed to blow up the cooling tower of its main nuclear reactor, an event to be broadcast live by television crews from the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, all parties to six-nation talks on nuclear dismantlement.
The South Korean foreign ministry confirmed Thursday that the 60-page document – which was originally promised by the end of the year – had been submitted to the Chinese who will pass it on to the United States and other parties.
``The North's declaration of its nuclear program provides an important momentum,'' South Korea's top nuclear envoy Kim Sook was quoted as the South Korean official news agency Yonhap.
Although largely symbolic, the lifting of the sanctions represents a major turning point in the Bush administration's tortuous relationship with the Communist regime of Kim Jong Il. Bush once promised he would have no dealings with North Korea, a charter member of his "axis of evil,'' before the regime undertook a complete and irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear weapons program.
In the documents, North Korea was supposed todisclose how much weapons-grade plutonium it possesses and provide other details of its nuclear program. It does not however divulge how many completed nuclear weapons it possesse or detail a still shadowy uranium enrichment program. Its exchanges of nuclear technology with Syria are also ommitted, according to analysts.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters in Osaka, Japan on Wednesday that the lifting of the sanctions would require 45 days, during which time North Korea's declaration will be carefully reviewed.
``We've all got a lot of work to do,'' said Hill. ``We need to move to the next phase…in which North Korea is supposed to abandon all of its weapons.''
North Korea was placed on the terror list after the bombing of Korean Air flight 858 in 1987, in which 115 people, mostly South Koreans, were killed.
