PROGRESS WITH PYONGYANG

North Korea’s handing over a required declaration of its nuclear activities and the accompanying relaxing of U.S. restrictions are important steps toward a resolution of a decades-long standoff over the secretive regime’s weapons work. Many more steps must be taken before the process can be called a success.

Last Thursday, North Korean officials gave the Chinese a 60-page declaration that they say details their nuclear activities since 1986. Then on Friday, they destroyed a portion of a nuclear facility at Yongbyon.

The declaration, due at the end of 2007, is said to give an overview of the country’s nuclear activities and facilities. It is thought the North Koreans reported far less nuclear material than U.S. intelligence agencies believe they have. U.S. officials believe North Korea had enough of the radioactive material to make a half-dozen nuclear bombs.

This and other documentation provided by the North Koreans will have to be verified, the details of which have yet to be worked out. As past dealings with North Korea have shown, this process could easily fall apart over small disagreements.

The declaration does not include details on the country’s nuclear weapons work or information on whether and to what extent Pyongyang helped Syria build a nuclear reactor.

President Bush struck the right tone. “The U.S. has no illusions about the regime in Pyongyang. We remain deeply concerned about human rights abuses … nuclear testing and proliferation, ballistic missile program, and the threat it continues to pose,” he said in announcing the steps the U.S. would take in exchange for the North Korean action.

These include beginning the process of removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and lifting provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act. More practically, shipments of oil and food will soon be on the way from the U.S. to North Korea.

While many observers praise the oft-stalled six-party talks for this week’s progress, others suggest that the American concessions will embolden other dangerous regimes to seek nuclear weapons. “Once a country has nuclear weapons, the negotiation dynamic changes,” Martin Navias of the Centre for Defence Studies at Kings College in London told the BBC. As a country gets closer to having nuclear weapons, the Americans get more accommodating was his read of the situation.

Leaders in Iran, for example, could conclude that North Korea’s 2006 testing of a nuclear device (thereby proving it had one), not diplomatic talks, led to the easing of restrictions on Pyongyang. This would be a dangerous precedent and shows that intervention before a weapon is developed should remain a priority with other countries.

Many crucial steps – verification of North Korea’s data and dismantling activities being the most important – remain, but this week’s activities are important steps toward a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.