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North Korea hands over detailed “nuclear list”

Beijing: In a breakthrough move expected to facilitate the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, China announced on Thursday that North Korea submitted its detailed list of nuclear reactors and materials to it. The brief announcement was made by Vice-Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who is also China’s envoy to the six-party talks.

The talks involve the U.S., Russia, Japan, the two Koreas and host China, and they have formed the chief mechanism for negotiations.

North Korea was placed by the U.S. State Department on its terrorism list 20 years ago after its agents were implicated in the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner, which killed 155 onboard passengers. The designation resulted in sanctions, including curbs on aid and a ban on sales of weapons.

Last year in February, the six-party talks yielded a deal, according to which Pyongyang agreed to dismantle its nuclear programme in return for normal diplomatic ties with the U.S. and Japan in addition to economic aid equivalent to 1 million metric tonnes of heavy-fuel oil.

North Korea then proceeded to shut down its main Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the source of its weapons-grade plutonium, last July and began disabling it in November.

However, it missed an end-of-2007 deadline to turn over a full inventory of its programmes and a description of its spread of nuclear technology to others.

The parties to the talks will now set about verifying the information. Mr. Wu said the six nations had already agreed on a set of principles to proceed with the work of verification.

AP reports:

U.S. President George W. Bush said on Thursday he would lift key trade sanctions against North Korea and remove it from the U.S. terrorism blacklist, a remarkable turnaround in policy toward the regime he once branded as part of an “axis of evil.”

Mr. Bush called the declaration a positive step along a long road to get the nation to give up its nuclear weapons.

Yet, he remained wary of the regime, which has lied about its nuclear work before.

“We will trust you only to the extent you fulfil your promises,” said Mr. Bush at the White House.

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