By Arshad Mohammed
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has agreed to cooperatefully on verifying its nuclear declaration, a U.S. officialsaid on Tuesday as he displayed some of the 18,822 documentsPyongyang has given Washington about its plutonium program.
Obtaining the documents last week was a victory for theBush administration, which has struggled to persuade thesecretive Communist nation to produce a "complete and correct"declaration of its nuclear programs that was due on December31.
The declaration is part of a broader multilateral dealunder which North Korea, which detonated an atomic device inOctober 2006, would abandon all its nuclear programs inexchange for economic and diplomatic incentives.
The declaration has been held up partly because ofPyongyang's reluctance to discuss any transfer of nucleartechnology to other countries, notably Syria, as well as toaccount for its suspected pursuit of uranium enrichment.
The United States accuses North Korea of helping Syria witha suspected nuclear reactor project that Israel destroyed in aSeptember air strike.
It also has accused Pyongyang of pursuing a uraniumenrichment program, which could provide it with a second way toproduce fissile material for nuclear weapons in addition to theplutonium-based program used in its 2006 nuclear test.
According to people briefed on the talks, the declarationis expected to be split in two parts -- a disclosure of NorthKorea's plutonium-related activities on the one hand and its"acknowledgment" of U.S. concerns about its suspected uraniumenrichment and proliferation activities on the other.
Sung Kim, the U.S. State Department's top Korea expert,told reporters U.S. and North Korean officials had "productive"talks about elements of the declaration, which Pyongyang isrequired to make under the so-called six-party agreement.
The agreement was struck by the two Koreas, China, Japan,Russia and the United States.
"We had very detailed, substantive discussions ... on allaspects of their declaration," Kim said. "The North Koreans ...agreed to cooperate fully with verification activities," hesaid as he held up a sheaf of documents about North Korea'splutonium-related activities.
'UNDROPPED SHOE'
Kim said he hoped U.S. experts would have a preliminaryassessment of the documents -- which are written in Korean andfilled seven boxes -- in a few weeks.
"Obviously, the documents themselves, alone, is not enough.We will need to conduct a very full verification, includingaccess to their facilities, sampling, interviews with personnelinvolved in nuclear programs," he said.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill, the top U.S.negotiator with North Korea, could meet with his South Koreanand Japanese counterparts early next week for three-way talks.Earlier, Kim had suggested all six nations might hold talks buta U.S. official said he was referring only to those three.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Saturday thatNorth Korea was expected to submit a report on its nuclearactivities in the next few weeks, but Kim told reporters it was"too early to tell whether it would be ready any time soon."
Skeptics have argued that allowing North Korea simply to"acknowledge" U.S. concerns on uranium enrichment andproliferation is not good enough.
Robert Gallucci, the lead U.S. negotiator in a 1994U.S.-North Korea nuclear deal that froze Pyongyang's plutoniumprogram, said he supports the effort to negotiate a solutionbut said it must address the Syria proliferation question.
"That is a huge undropped shoe and it needs to be dealtwith," he said in a speech at a Washington think tank.
He also said he believed North Korea had told the UnitedStates it had made "close to, I think, 40 kilograms (88 pounds)of plutonium."
Asked about his comment, a State Department official said:"They haven't provided a declaration and I am not going tospeculate about what would be in it when they do."
The Washington Post reported in Wednesday's edition thatU.S. intelligence analysts have prepared a new estimate of thesize of North Korea's stockpile of plutonium that is largerthan previous assessments.
The new U.S. estimate is expected to be from 35 to 40, or50 to 60, kilograms, though sources would not detail how muchit had increased from the last government estimate, thenewspaper said.
(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Eric Walsh)
