US lifts trade bans as Korea moves forward on nuclear deal

North Korea took a major step towards allaying world fears over its nuclear ambitions today by releasing details of its programme.

It handed over the long-awaited documents to Chinese officials, as it agreed to do as part of its plan to end nuclear activities.

The United States responded by lifting some trade sanctions against the country President Bush once branded as part of an “axis of evil.”

“The United States welcomes the North Korean declaration of its nuclear programs,” said a White House spokesman.

She said North Korea had promised to demolish the cooling tower at its main reactor in Yongbyon tomorrow.

It is turning over information “essential to verifying that North Korea is ending all of its nuclear programmes and activities.”

“There is still more work to be done in order for North Korea to end its isolation,” the spokeswoman said.

“It must dismantle all of its nuclear facilities, give up its separated plutonium, and resolve outstanding questions on its highly enriched uranium and proliferation activities. It must end these activities in a fully verifiable way. ”

The action, one step along the road to getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, comes after the United States and four other nations softened their demands on what North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had to declare, and waited an additional six months to see it.

Besides providing information about its nuclear facilities, North Korea’s declaration is to provide a verifiable figure on how much plutonium it has.

It will not include information on North Korea’s suspected programme of developing weapons fuelled by enriched uranium. As a result of the six-nation nuclear talks, the North has stopped making plutonium and begun disabling its nuclear facilities, but it still has a stockpile of radioactive material that experts believe is enough to build from six to 10 bombs.

The North proved it could build a working nuclear bomb when it carried out an underground nuclear test blast in October 2006. Details on the bombs, however, will be left to the next stage of the talks, when Pyongyang is supposed to abandon all its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea’s declaration will also not include a complete account of how it allegedly helped Syria build what senior U.S. intelligence officials say was a secret nuclear reactor meant to make plutonium, which can be used to make high-yield nuclear weapons. Israeli jets bombed the structure in the remote eastern desert of Syria in September 2007.

The North is expected in the declaration to say how much plutonium it has produced at its main reactor facility at Yongbyon.