26 June 2008
North Korea Nuclear Declaration Step in Right Direction, Says Bush
United States lifts sanctions as Six-Party Talks turn to verification
Washington -- President Bush welcomed North Korea’s delivery of information about its past nuclear activities and announced the United States will lift key trade sanctions and remove Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
“This can be a moment of opportunity for North Korea,” Bush said at a June 26 White House news briefing. “If North Korea continues to make the right choices, it can repair its relationship with the international community, much as Libya has done over the past few years.”
Bush’s announcement came as North Korea submitted its official declaration of its nuclear program to the Chinese government, chair of the Six-Party Talks which also include Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. Libya was removed from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list in 2006 and Iraq after the 2003 invasion to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.
“Today's developments show that tough multilateral diplomacy can yield promising results,” Bush said, but “the United States has no illusions about the regime in Pyongyang.”
“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,” Bush said. “The journey toward that goal remains long, but today we have taken an important step in the right direction.”
Under phase two of an October 2007 agreement, North Korea began disabling its Yongbyon nuclear facility, where it produced plutonium used to build nuclear weapons, such as the one it tested in October 2006. North Korea’s declaration had been due on December 31, 2007.
The Six-Party envoys are expected to meet in the coming days to develop a joint process to verify North Korea’s declaration, said National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. The process will be supported by more than 18,000 pages of nuclear documentation dating back to 1986 and released by North Korean officials earlier this year. (See “North Korea Moving Toward Nuclear Declaration, Says Rice.”)
If the declaration is verified, Six-Party envoys will move the process toward the third and final stage -- actual dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear infrastructure.
“Any effort to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula must contend with the fact that North Korea is the most secretive and opaque regime on the planet,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote in a Wall Street Journal column published June 26. “We will not accept that statement on faith. We will insist on verification.”
In a further gesture of its commitment, North Korea announced it will demolish Yongbyon’s main cooling tower during a June 27 televised ceremony. Sung Kim, director of the State Department’s Office of Korean Affairs, will attend.
LIFTING SANCTIONS EASES PYONGYANG’S ISOLATION
The Six-Party Talks have been rooted in the principle of “action for action,” Bush said, making America’s moves to ease sanctions the next logical step.
Following Pyongyang’s declaration, Bush issued a proclamation removing North Korea from the Trading with the Enemy Act, a U.S. law dating back to 1917 giving presidents the authority to restrict the movement of goods and money and related activities with hostile states. Following the move, Cuba becomes the only country subject to the law.
In a second proclamation, Bush notified Congress that in 45 days he will remove North Korea from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, where it was listed following Pyongyang’s alleged involvement in the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner that killed 115 passengers.
While removal from the list will clear the way for North Korea to apply for low-interest loans from the World Bank and other international lenders, Bush acknowledged that both actions amount to a modest easing of North Korea’s international isolation.
“North Korea will remain one of the most heavily sanctioned nations in the world,” Bush said. “The sanctions that North Korea faces for its human rights violations, its nuclear test in 2006, and its weapons proliferation will all stay in effect. And all United Nations Security Council sanctions will stay in effect as well.”
Bush also urged North Korea to answer lingering questions about a covert program it operated in the late 1970s to kidnap Japanese citizens. “The United State s takes the abduction issue very seriously. We expect the North Koreans to solve this issue in a positive way for the Japanese.”
On other elements of North Korea’s nuclear past -- a suspected uranium enrichment program similar to Iran’s, and Pyongyang’s cooperation with Syria and other countries seeking nuclear technologies -- Bush urged the North Koreans to seize the opportunity to address these concerns and realize further benefits.
“United States will carefully observe North Korea's actions and act accordingly,” Bush said.
Bush’s remarks and Rice's article are available from America.gov.
