N. Korea to provide nuclear list

North Korea was expected to turn over a long-awaited inventory of its nuclear program today as part of a deal that will allow the lifting of some U.S. sanctions.

President Bush could make an announcement this morning that North Korea should be removed from a State Department list of terror-sponsoring nations and from a blacklist of countries under the Trading With the Enemy Act.

In turn, North Korea is supposed to blow up the cooling tower of its main nuclear reactor, an event to be broadcast live in the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, all parties to talks on nuclear dismantlement.

Although largely symbolic, the lifting of the sanctions represents a major turning point in the Bush administration’s tortuous relationship with the regime of Kim Jong Il. Bush once promised he would have no dealings with North Korea, a member of what he dubbed an “axis of evil,” before the regime undertook dismantlement of its nuclear arms program.

In the documents to be submitted today, which will be given first to the Chinese, North Korea is expected to disclose how much weapons-grade plutonium it possesses and other details of its nuclear program.

North Korea does not, however, divulge details of a still shadowy uranium enrichment program, aid to Syria’s suspected nuclear program, or the number of bombs already produced, according to analysts familiar with the negotiations.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters in Osaka, Japan, on Wednesday that the lifting of the sanctions would take 45 days, during which North Korea’s declaration will be carefully reviewed.

North Korea was placed on the terrorism list after its agents bombed Korean Air Flight 858 in 1987, an attack that killed 115 people, mostly South Koreans.