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Secretive North Korea was preparing a global TV spectacular Friday to dramatise its commitment to scrapping atomic weapons, a day after it handed over an account of its nuclear programmes.
The communist state was set to blow up the cooling tower at the plutonium-producing Yongbyon complex, the most visible symbol of a decades-old pursuit of nuclear bombs.
The explosion at an undisclosed time will be symbolic since the Yonbyon reactor has already been shut down under a six-nation disarmament pact.
But it follows the North's handover Thursday evening of the long-awaited nuclear declaration, a move expected to end the stalemate in six party negotiations.
A wary US President George W. Bush welcomed the declaration as an "important step" but only the start of the process.
"We will trust you only to the extent that you fulfil your promises," he told the country he once branded as part of an "axis of evil."
Bush announced he was partly lifting some Trading With The Enemy Act sanctions. He notified Congress he was removing North Korea from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, effective after a 45-day review period.
These measures are also largely symbolic since a battery of other sanctions against the North remain in force, including UN sanctions imposed after the country's October 2006 nuclear test.
The delisting can be put on hold if the North fails to meet US demands that it allow its declaration -- especially the size of the plutonium stockpile -- to be rigorously verified.
The declaration delivered to six-party talks host China is said to give details of nuclear facilities and of Yongbyon's production over the past two decades of plutonium for bomb-making.
It does not disclose any information on nuclear weapons, an issue to be tackled in the next phase of the six-party deal.
China Friday handed over the dossier to the other six-party nations, the chief US negotiator Christopher Hill said.
"All the nuclear materials and fissile materials and bomb-making materials is listed," Hill told reporters in the Japanese city of Kyoto, where Group of Eight foreign ministers were meeting.
The ministers including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged North Korea to end its nuclear programmes.
"The important thing is to thoroughly verify it (the declaration) and lead to our final objective of abandonment of nuclear weapons," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told reporters during a break in the talks.
US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said the report did not answer US allegations of nuclear proliferation to Syria, or its claims of a past secret enriched uranium weapons programme.
"We're in a situation of not quite admitting, not denying, but opening the door for us to be able to try and get greater clarity," Hadley said.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the North's move a "very encouraging development."
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said North Korea must grant access to the reactor core and radioactive nuclear waste. But she called the 60-page document a "good step forward."
The impoverished North is getting one million tons of fuel oil or equivalent energy aid, plus the terrorism delisting, in return for disabling Yongbyon and delivering the declaration.
The six parties -- North and South Korea, Japan, Russia, China and the United States -- are expected to meet in Beijing next month.
They will discuss ways to verify the document, complete the disablement and prepare for the final phase: the dismantlement of plants and handover of all nuclear material including weapons.
In return the North would secure diplomatic relations with its decades-old enemies the United States and Japan, along with "lasting peace and stability" in the region.
Before Yongbyon shut down foreign analysts would watch for smoke from the 30-metre-tall (99 foot) cooling tower to see if the reactor was operating.
TV crews from North Korea's fellow negotiating nations have been invited to witness its destruction and to broadcast it around the globe.
PHOTO CAPTION:
N. Korean flag
AFP
