Bush warily rewards NKorea for nuclear move
WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President George W. Bush on Thursday warily rewarded North Korean nuclear disclosures, easing trade sanctions and moving to take the "axis of evil" country off a US terrorism blacklist.
But Bush stressed that his gesture would barely dent global pressure over the secretive communist regime's atomic ambitions and warned it must still come clean on its suspected arsenal and any sharing of nuclear know-how overseas.
"Our ultimate goal remains clear: A stable and peaceful Korean Peninsula, where people are free from oppression, free from hunger and disease, and free from nuclear weapons. The journey toward that goal remains long, but today we have taken an important step in the right direction," he said.
Bush announced he was easing some trade sanctions under the Trading With The Enemy Act and notified the US Congress he was removing North Korea from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, effective after a 45-day review period.
"During this period, the United States will carefully observe North Korea's actions and act accordingly," he said, warning of further punishment for "wrong choices" if Pyongyang breaks its pledges to fully disclose its activities.
Bush's comments at the White House came shortly after North Korea gave China a partial nuclear accounting, six months late, as agreed to in six-country talks that also group Russia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.
"We will trust you only to the extent that you fulfill your promises," he told Pyongyang. "I'm under no illusions that this is the first step; this isn't the end of the process, this is the beginning of the process."
The White House said the declaration did not meet Washington's past demands for a full accounting of past uranium enrichment activities or alleged proliferation, and left doubts about how many bombs it may have produced.
But the State Department later said that proliferation and uranium concerns were acknowledged in a "package" of declarations but no details were provided.
So with just six months before he leaves office in January, the US president walked a tightrope between savoring a much-desired diplomatic victory and denying any softening of his hard-line on the Stalinist state.
"We remain deeply concerned about North Korea's human rights abuses, uranium enrichment activities, nuclear testing and proliferation, ballistic missile programs and the threat it continues to pose to South Korea and its neighbors," he said.
Washington has accused the North Koreans of helping Syria build a suspect nuclear site that Israel destroyed in September. Syria has denied the charges.
"If they do not fully disclose and end their plutonium, their enrichment, and their proliferation efforts and activities, there will be further consequences," said Bush.
He also had a message for staunch ally Japan, which had urged no softening of the US hardline until Pyongyang satisfies Tokyo's demands to fully account for the abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korean agents.
"The United States will never forget the abduction of Japanese citizens by the North Koreans," he declared. "We expect the North Koreans to solve this issue in a positive way for the Japanese."
The declaration was part of a series of measures aimed at getting North Korea, which tested an atomic weapon in October 2006, to agree to nuclear disarmament in exchange for aid and security guarantees.
Speaking in Kyoto, Japan, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said North Korea must grant access to its Yongbyon plutonium reactor core and its radioactive nuclear waste.
A senior US official told reporters on condition of anonymity that the envoys from the six countries involved in the negotiations since 2003 could meet in Beijing on Monday to discuss arrangements for verification.
US officials played down the economic impact of removing the terrorism label, which had prevented the impoverished state from receiving US economic aid and blocks loans from the World Bank and other multilateral organizations.
Remaining US statutory sanctions on North Korea include those affecting trade in military, dual-use, and missile-related items, while most forms of US economic assistance, other than purely humanitarian assistance, are prohibited.
There are also UN sanctions against North Korea, including those imposed after it tested a nuclear bomb.
