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Bush, Lee to focus on N. Korea

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Times Staff Writer

President Bush and South Korea’s new leader hold their first official meeting this weekend in an atmosphere sobered by the latest demonstration of how far they remain from their most important shared goal: removing nuclear weapons from North Korea.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak meets Bush at Camp David, in Maryland, just as U.S. officials have detailed a pending agreement that relaxes a long-standing administration demand that Pyongyang make a “complete and correct” disclosure of its nuclear assets and activities.

The approach has grown out of talks involving North Korean and U.S. officials along with representatives of South Korea, Japan, Russia and China. Not all details of the talks or the agreement have been disclosed.

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The White House and State Department both denied this week that they had lowered the bar for North Korea, saying the tactical shift would help propel stalled talks and reveal the extent of the country’s nuclear program.

Under the new proposal, U.S. officials would provide Pyongyang with findings and concerns from American intelligence assessments, and the North would “acknowledge” U.S. concerns, officials said.

That means Pyongyang wouldn’t have to immediately address U.S. allegations that it has operated a uranium-based nuclear weapons program or that it has helped Syria with a nuclear program.

The Bush administration has repeatedly insisted on such disclosures in the past, while Pyongyang has denied the charges.

For meeting the new requirements, Pyongyang would receive what it has described as “political compensation:” The United States would remove it from the stigmatizing list of countries that sponsor terrorism, and from a list of countries that face trade restrictions under U.S. law.

The new South Korean government has voiced no misgivings about the agreement. Lee, who has promised a tougher stance on North Korea than his predecessor, is expected to express support for the agreement but say little else when he and Bush hold a news conference today.

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Bush is said to support the latest approach. However, it has outraged conservatives and stirred unhappiness within the administration.

White House and State Department officials said the shift would help reach the larger goal of convincing Pyongyang to disclose details of its plutonium weapons program, the core of its nuclear effort. North Korea has denied that it also operates a uranium-based program.

Bush and Lee also are expected to discuss trade. South Korean officials said Friday that they would partially lift a ban on U.S. beef shipments imposed over mad cow disease, clearing a major hurdle to a larger trade deal.

The process of denuclearizing North Korea entails shutting down the country’s production facilities, disabling and dismantling them. North Korea is in the process of disabling its plutonium production reactor.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared this week to promise that U.S. officials would reimpose sanctions if they found that North Korea had not been truthful about its activities under the agreement.

“There is still reason for caution and skepticism,” Rice told reporters Thursday. “We are at the beginning of a very complex process, not the end.”

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The flurry of activity points to just how little progress has been made, despite an enormous commitment of U.S. time and effort, since a six-nation deal on denuclearization was signed Feb. 17, 2007.

U.S. officials have said the process would lead to Pyongyang’s surrender of its nuclear facilities and materials produced since a deal reached under former President Clinton fell apart in 2002.

So far, however, neither side has risked much on the deal.

The North Koreans have frozen their plutonium production program, centered at a dilapidated reactor at Yongbyon. The United States agreed to reward the impoverished regime with fuel oil.

But the 50,000 tons included in the deal is a relatively small amount and has been provided by other countries.

“I would say neither side has made any significant concessions yet,” said Gary Samore, a proliferation expert in the Clinton administration who is now director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “We’re still at a very early stage.”

In pursuing the deal with North Korea, U.S. officials have paid a price in their relationship with Japan, which believes the Bush administration has backed off a commitment to force North Korea to address its abduction of Japanese citizens.

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Although the Japanese are not publicly protesting the latest U.S. moves, some experts believe that Japan’s disappointment will lead it, over the long term, to drift further from the American security orbit.

In the upcoming stage of talks, U.S. officials are expected to press for access to nuclear sites, documents and scientists -- much of which North Korea has rejected in the past.

State Department officials will travel to Pyongyang next week to hold two days of talks on verification procedures, officials said Friday.

Though much could be accomplished in the nine months Bush has left in office, the pace of the past year suggests that the hardest parts of the effort could be left to a new administration.

Robert Gallucci, a top negotiator under Clinton and now dean of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, supports Bush’s general approach but believes the North Koreans are “probably dragging their feet.”

“They’re probably handicapping this election and thinking they will have a Democratic president and Congress, and the deal will probably get better,” Gallucci said.

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paul.richter@latimes.com

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