Rice to make Asia trip amid positive steps by North Korea

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads to Asia this week amid signs of an imminent breakthrough in efforts to get North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons and bring a formal end to the Korean War.

After months of delay, the communist North appears set to hand over an accounting of its atomic activities by the end of the month, fulfilling a key step in the denuclearization process that will trigger an announcement by the Bush administration that it intends to lift sanctions against Pyongyang, U.S. officials said Friday.

Once that announcement is made, North Korea is expected to blow up the cooling tower at its Yongbyon reactor complex in what would be a dramatic, if only symbolic, televised signal of its intent to abandon nuclear arms, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomatic discussions.

All of these developments could happen within the next 10 days while Rice is on her Asian trip -- she is visiting Japan, South Korea and China. But that timeline is regarded as a best-case scenario given the difficulty in predicting North Korean behavior due to the closed nature of its authoritarian regime. North Korea has in the past unexpectedly backed out of completing promised actions, confounding attempts to read the country's opaque leadership.

However, as Rice prepares to leave Washington on Monday, she and her aides have been setting the stage for potential movement by North Korea and how the administration will respond under the terms of agreements reached in what are known as the "six-party talks." Those involved are China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.

North Korea, which detonated a nuclear device in 2006, has stopped making plutonium and began disabling its nuclear facilities so they cannot be quickly restarted, but it still has a stockpile of radioactive material that experts believe is enough to make about a half-dozen bombs.

The talks have been stalled since Pyongyang failed to meet an earlier obligation to provide a declaration of its nuclear activities by the end of 2007.

Since then, the United States has been pushing hard for progress, hoping to reach a final deal before President Bush leaves office. There has been a flurry of exchanges between U.S. and North Korean officials.

After a series of incremental steps forward in recent months, including the North's hand-over to the United States of nearly 19,000 documents related to its plutonium production, Rice said Wednesday she expected Pyongyang soon to produce its declaration to the Chinese hosts of the talks.

In return, she reiterated, the Bush administration would notify Congress of its intent to remove North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and lift sanctions on it under the Trading With the Enemy Act. But, she also stressed, unless the North's denuclearization actions are verified, U.S. policy toward the country would not change.

Rice chose to make those comments at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in a deliberate shot at right-wing critics who believe the administration's North Korea policy is fatally flawed because its reclusive leader, Kim Jong Il, and his colleagues cannot be trusted under any circumstances.

A day later, she told CNN in an interview that she expected the North Korean declaration to be submitted this month, meaning on or before June 30, when she will be in Beijing on the final day of her Asia swing.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday those remarks were based on indications from the North Koreans themselves that the declaration would be presented in the near future.

Also Friday, Christopher Hill, the top U.S. negotiator, told reporters in Beijing that once it had been provided the next steps would come rapidly.

"A number of things are going to happen very quickly, very quickly upon the receipt of the declaration," said Hill, who plans to stay in China for a North Korea-related meeting on Monday and whose onward schedule has not yet been set.

Uncertainty over Hill's travel plans has raised speculation that the top negotiators for all six parties may meet in Beijing at some point during the next week to accept formally the North Korean declaration.

Despite her presence in the region, Rice herself is unlikely to get directly involved in negotiating with the North Koreans, although at some point, if Pyongyang is judged to be complying with the process, she is committed to attending a meeting of the foreign ministers of all six parties.