SEOUL (AFP) — North Korea on Thursday reported progress in talks with a US team aimed at restarting a stalled nuclear disarmament deal, as US officials accused Pyongyang of sharing atomic technology with Syria.
The team led by US State Department official Sung Kim spent two days in Pyongyang from Tuesday discussing the North's promised nuclear declaration, an issue that has held up progress on the landmark six-nation pact for months.
"The negotiations proceeded in a sincere and constructive manner and progress was made there," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the communist state's Korean Central News Agency.
"I will just tell you that we had a good visit. We had a very substantive discussion," Kim told reporters in Seoul.
Apparent US concessions over the contents of the declaration, which is supposed to disclose all of the North's nuclear activities, have come under fire from conservatives in Washington.
On Thursday in the US capital, lawmakers were briefed by the White House and the CIA behind closed doors on charges that North Korea helped Syria build a nuclear reactor at a site destroyed by an Israeli raid in September.
The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Pete Hoekstra, was upset that President George W. Bush's administration took several months to brief the full panel.
"By waiting so long to be briefing the intelligence committee and other committees on the (Capitol) Hill, the administration has made it much more difficult that if they do reach some kind of an agreement with the six-party talks, it will be much harder for them to go through the Congress and get these agreements approved," Hoekstra said.
This was "because they have really damaged the relationship between Congress and the administration."
Hoekstra also said the North must answer allegations it helped Syria build the reactor before it can be taken off the US blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism.
"This is a serious proliferation issue both in the Middle East and the country that may be involved in Asia," Hoekstra said.
Syria has denounced the charges.
After a tough stance early in his first term, Bush is now pushing to resolve the nuclear issue before he leaves office next January.
In last year's six-nation deal, the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia agreed to grant North Korea energy aid and major diplomatic and security benefits in return for full denuclearisation.
The United States had also offered to remove Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terrorism as part of the agreement.
The North has begun disabling its plutonium-producing plants but has not produced the declaration promised by the end of 2007. It said it delivered the documentation last November, but the US called it incomplete.
In particular, Washington said Pyongyang must allay suspicions about an alleged secret uranium enrichment programme and suspected proliferation. The North denies both activities.
According to numerous reports, the North, in a face-saving gesture, will now merely "acknowledge" US concerns about uranium enrichment and proliferation in a confidential document to the US.
It would detail its admitted plutonium operation, which is based at the Yongbyon complex, in a formal declaration to talks host China.
In upbeat comments Wednesday, South Korea's Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan said the "last work" on getting the declaration was underway and the six-party talks could resume next month.
An unidentified senior US official told The Washington Post the timing of the Washington briefing was meant to torpedo any deal with North Korea to remove it from the US blacklist.
"Making public the pictures is likely to inflame the North Koreans," the official said. "And that's just what opponents of this whole arrangement want, because they think the North Koreans will stalk off."
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