BEIJING (AFP) — North Korea was expected to finally deliver an overdue account of its nuclear activities Thursday, the next step in years of international talks to get the secretive country to abandon atomic weapons.
Six months later than had been agreed, officials were to present a complete dossier of the country's nuclear material, facilities and programmes to China, host of the long-running talks and the North's closest ally.
The declaration is part of a series of measures aimed at getting North Korea, which tested an atom bomb two years ago with the talks under way, to agree to nuclear disarmament in exchange for aid and security guarantees.
"The Chinese, I think, will inform the rest of us that they have received the declaration," Christopher Hill, the chief US negotiator in the talks, said on Wednesday. He said the declaration would "probably" be made Thursday.
The United States and China, along with South Korea, Russia and Japan, have been in talks with North Korea since 2003, trying to persuade the isolated regime not to pursue nuclear weapons.
But the North has repeatedly gone back on its commitments as the talks have progressed, even testing a nuclear weapon in October 2006 -- the first and only time it has done so.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted the foreign ministry in Seoul as saying the declaration would be handed over late Thursday. In Beijing, the Chinese foreign ministry declined to comment on when the dossier was expected.
North Korea, deeply suspicious of the outside world, wants security guarantees as part of the disarmament deal. It is said to particularly fear an attack by the United States, which it harshly criticises in state propaganda.
Hill said the first declaration would detail all aspects of the North's nuclear dossier except any atomic weapons themselves, which are due to be handled in the next phase of negotiations.
It is unknown how many nuclear weapons the North may have produced. The US-based Institute for Science and International Security estimated last year that the country had separated enough plutonimu for up to 12 nuclear weapons.
Almost every step in the disarmament process has been accompanied by a concession to the North, and the White House said Wednesday it could take the country off a terrorism blacklist "quite soon" after the declaration.
On Friday, North Korea plans to blow up the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in front of a worldwide TV audience, as a symbol of its commitment to the process.
A mechanism to verify the declaration, which is expected to include Pyongyang's plutonium stockpiles, would then be set up, while more energy aid would be delievered to North Korea, Hill said earlier this week.
At the end of the process, the countries involved in the talks envisage the handover of all weapons and fissile material in return for diplomatic ties with the United States and Japan, as well as a formal peace agreement.
But Daniel Pinkston, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, told AFP in Seoul that there would still be "a long way to go" even after North Korea declared all its nuclear facilities and programmes.
He said any eventual disarmament would take "years and not months."
There have been repeated disputes about the extent of the nuclear progammes in the North and whether it will make a full and complete declaration.
North Korea has repeatedly denied the US claim that it has a programme to develop highly enriched uranium.
When it makes a declaration, the North will reportedly announce a 37 kilogram (81 pound) plutonium stockpile -- less than the 40 to 50 kilos that US intelligence officials have estimated.
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