WASHINGTON, June 26, 2008
Bush Lifts Sanctions On North Korea
Regime Removed From U.S. Terrorism Blacklist As North Discloses Info On Nuke Activities
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Play CBS Video Video Bush Eases N. Korea Sanctions The United States is set to lift key sanctions against North Korea, a sharp detour from previous policy. Bob Schieffer reports.
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Video U.S. Eases Sanctions On N. Korea President Bush lifted trade sanctions against North Korea after the country handed over a report on its nuclear work to China. Pauline Chiou reports.
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President Bush told reporters, "This is the first step. This isn't the end of the process. It is the beginning of the process." (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
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Chinese paramilitary police officers stand guard outside the North Korean Embassy in Beijing Thursday June 26, 2008. Developments on North Korea's long-delayed nuclear declaration were expected in Beijing Thursday, the deadline for the North to hand over an accounting of its nuclear program. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)
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Song Il Ho (L), North Korea's ambassador for normalization talks with Japan, and Akitaka Saiki, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, shake hands in front of the North Korean Embassy in Beijing on June 11 after the end of the first day of the two-day, working level meeting at the embassy. (AP Photo/Kyodo)
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Interactive N. Korea: Tests And Threats Follow recent events and learn about this secretive nation's nuclear capabilities.
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Fast Facts North Korea Learn about the people, economy and history.
Six years after branding North Korea a part of his "axis of evil," Mr. Bush offered mostly symbolic concessions in exchange for Kim Jong Il's decision to hand over a long-awaited accounting of its nuclear bomb-making abilities.
"If they don't fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be placed on them," Mr. Bush declared, just a few hours after North Korea handed over 60 pages of documentation about its nuclear past to Chinese officials in Beijing.
What the North Koreans declared about its plutonium work and nuclear programs dating to 1986 was a slimmed down version of what the Bush administration initially sought. The document said nothing about the nuclear weapons they do have and about their uranium enrichment program, reports CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan.
Furthermore, the document revealed nothing about how North Korea is proliferating nuclear technology around the world, reports Logan.
Still, Mr. Bush said he was pleased, calling the declaration a positive step in negotiations with a fickle regime that have been stop-and-go for years. Bush emphasized that he was keenly aware that Pyongyang had lied about its nuclear capabilities before.
"I'm under no illusions that this is the first step," Mr. Bush said. "This isn't the end of the process. This is the beginning of the process of action for action."
He rattled off a list of ongoing U.S. concerns about North Korea - human rights abuses, uranium enrichment activities, nuclear testing and proliferation, ballistic missile programs and the threat North Korea poses to its neighbors.
Then he announced he was erasing trade sanctions imposed on North Korea under the Trading With the Enemy Act, and notifying Congress that, in 45 days, the administration intends to take North Korea off the State Department list of nations that sponsor terrorism.
"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," Mr. Bush said.
The White House announcement marked a turnabout of the U.S. hostile policy toward impoverished North Korea. Better relations with Washington could eventually improve dire economic conditions for the country's 23 million people who suffer food shortages and blackouts. But with many steps to go in North Korea's disarmament process, that is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
To demonstrate that it is serious about forgoing its nuclear weapons, North Korea is planning the televised destruction Friday of a 65-foot-tall cooling tower at its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. The cooling tower is a key element of the reactor, but blowing it up - with the world watching - has little practical meaning because the reactor has already been nearly disabled.
Conservative Republicans, who want the U.S. to take an even tougher stance against the regime, were incensed.
"It's shameful," said John Bolton, Bush's former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. "This represents the final collapse of Bush's foreign policy."
"Profound disappointment" was the reaction of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.
Other lawmakers from both parties took the position that the declaration, though six months late, was better than nothing. They argue that the long-running negotiations the United States, Japan, South Korea, China and Russia have been having with Pyongyang offer the best chance of eventual denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
"Although more work remains to verifiably end North Korea's nuclear weapons program, this important achievement for the Bush administration is the direct result of painstaking, multilateral diplomacy," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who has been largely critical of Bush's foreign policy.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said progress on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program remains incomplete.
"But the regime's nuclear declaration is the latest reminder that, despite President Bush's once bellicose rhetoric, engaging our enemies can pay dividends," Kerry said.
Mr. Bush said the U.S. action actually would have little impact on North Korea's financial and diplomatic isolation; Defense Secretary Robert Gates downplayed the effect of taking North Korea off the terror list.
"The reality is that there are so many other sanctions on North Korea because of its other behaviors that there's really no practical effect of taking them off the terrorist list," Gates said.
In the next 45 days - the congressionally mandated waiting period for removing North Korea from the terrorism list - the six negotiating partners will agree on how best to verify what the regime has declared. The North Koreans have said they will provide access to their facilities, including the reactor core and waste sites.
What is included in the 60-page declaration is just as important as what's not.
The declaration details the amount of plutonium the North produced, down to the gram. A senior U.S. official says North Korea claims to have produced an amount of plutonium in the low 40-kilogram range, including estimates of waste. That is enough to construct at least a half-dozen nuclear bombs, and is in line with U.S. intelligence estimates.
What's missing?
Jack Pritchard, a top former advisor on North Korean policy to the Clinton and Bush administrations, told Logan that the holes in North Korea's declaration mean the most challenging issues are being kicked down the road.
"We still have years to go, so it's one positive step for which there are missing pieces from this announcement that's come today, this declaration. We need to get those missing pieces," Pritchard said.
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said North Korea had "acknowledged in writing" that the U.S. and its negotiating partners have raised concerns about its enrichment activities and its suspected cooperation with Syria.
"They have not been out publicly denying, discounting these concerns," Hadley said. "So we're in a situation of (North Korea) not quite admitting, not denying but opening the door for us to be able to try to get greater clarity."
Mr. Bush thanked all members of the six-party talks, but singled out Japan. Tokyo has argued that the U.S. decision to remove North Korea from the list of terrorist nations should be linked to progress in solving North Korea's abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s.
"The United States will never forget the abduction of Japanese citizens by the North Koreans," said Mr. Bush who called Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Wednesday to reiterate U.S. concern about the issue. "We will continue to closely cooperate and coordinate with Japan and press North Korea to swiftly resolve the abduction issue."
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 265 Commentsif bushit''s neocons see through this politically motivated move - so do the rest of us.
using n.korea - who hasn''t come 100% clean - as a "successful" policy feather in the administrations slimy cap - is a dangerous political ploy.
You have the concept of correctly calling out facts, and stating what differs from your opinion seriously confused. Just because you don''t agree with a fact, doesn''t mean it is not a fact.
Barrack Akbar 2008!" Posted by von_marko
If and when that happens, then talk.
Until then...
Has bush looked into his eyes, seen into his soul, and thinks he can do business with him? What an idiot!
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Could be one less country on the ''Axis of Evil'' list according to the DumbA** of Evil....excuse me..that''s W DumbA** of Evil.
Posted by standlee5
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You think so? Just wait ''til us taxpayers get the bill for it...
"If you do it, it''s appeasement, if we do it, it''s diplomacy".
Somewhere in this, the idiot-son, his family, and his buddies are making a lot of money...
1. No Attacks on US Soil in 7 years. (Clinton never came close to a record like that!)
2. North Korea announces it is ending its Nuclear Weapons research and blowing up the cooling tower Friday. 1 of 3 in the Axis of Evil is slowing changing for the better.
3. Iraq government gets stronger and stronger. Saddam Hussein (not to be confused with Barrack Hussein) is in hell. May was lowest US deaths since 2003. 2 of 3 in Axis of Evil is changing for the better.
4. UN, IEA, EU and most all civilized nations make a stand on preventing Iran from gaining Nuke weapons. 3 of 3 in Axis of Evil up against a wall.
Obama will surrender all 4
Barrack Akbar 2008!
Tony the Tiger responded "Thats Greeeeaaat"
Obama leads in the polls. God help us!
More Nukes = bad for everybody.
If GWB was the person you portray, we would have free Iraqi oil.
Posted by captalistpig at 07:57 PM : Jun 26, 2008
+ report abuse
You can understand how and why we are living through the WORST President in our History but listening to those who still support him. Here is a pathetic Little Man who hasn''t a clue, not a clue, about how to do his job ATTACKING Senator Obama a few weeks ago because HE wanted to sit down with People like the leader of North Korea in an effort to settle differences Diplomaticly then turning around and DOING EXACTLY that! Does this poor simple minded fascist see that?? No! He''s just LOST... as LOST as the ignorant little man he supports. Sieg Heil Bush
Posted by captalistpig at 08:19 PM : Jun 26, 2008
This board is about N. Korea, not Iran.
Try reading just the big letters....
The US/Iran policy price effect is negligible on worldwide markets.
Opec production reductions and unused surplus capacity is not. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/cfapps/STEO_Query/steotables.cfm?periodType=Annual&startYear=2004&startMonth=1&endYear=2008&endMonth=12&tableNumber=7
If we hit Iran, we wouldn''t touch their oil production. It''s the nuke weapons capacity that will be stopped. One way or another.
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