Bush Offers Carrots in Exchange for North Korea Nukes

[Silverback]

WASHINGTON — Pledging "action for action," President Bush on Thursday said North Korea has demonstrated a commitment to dismantling its nuclear weapons program and will be rewarded by being removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors and having trade sanctions lifted.

The president spoke hours after North Korea submitted its long-awaited declaration detailing its nuclear weapons activities. The government said that it would televise the demolition of the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear facility and turned over documents to China about its plutonium core and waste activities.

"Today is a positive day and it's a positive step forward," Bush said from the White House Rose Garden. "My point is this: We'll see. They said they are going to destroy parts of their plant in Pyongyang. That's a very positive step."

But Bush added, "We will trust you only to the extent that you fulfill your promises. I'm pleased with the progress ... there are no illusions ... this is the first step."

Bush said that in response to North Korea, the U.S. would erase trade sanctions under the Trading With the Enemy Act and notify Congress that in 45 days it intends to take North Korea off the State Department list of nations that sponsor terrorism.

"The two actions America is taking will have real impact on North Korea's financial and diplomatic isolation," he said.

U.N. Security Council resolutions remain intact, however, and other requirements still must be met, including an accounting of several Japanese citizens who were abducted in the 1970s and '80s.

Bush said that the Six Party Talks yielded success in returning North Korea to the international community, "much the way Libya has done in the past few years." But if Pyongyang does not respond to additional requirements, "there will be further consequences."

"If North Korea continues to make the right choices, it can repair its relationship with the international community. ... If North Korea makes the wrong choices, the United States and its partners in the Six Party Talks will act accordingly.

"The diplomatic process is not an end in itself. Our ultimate goal remains clear: a stable North Korean peninsula," Bush said.

Meanwhile, a U.S. official said North Korea has agreed to intensive U.S. verification of its plutonium production for nuclear weapons. Paperwork handed over to Chinese officials contains detailed data on the amount of plutonium produced during each of several rounds of production at a now-shuttered plutonium reactor.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. will check North Korea's math through a combination of documents, interviews and onsite visits to the reactor.

The paperwork handed in on Thursday does not contain detailed information about North Korea's separate uranium production program or what North Korea may have done to help Syria build a reactor.

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