N. Korea to give nuke files to U.S.

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North Korea has tentatively agreed to give the United States thousands of records from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor dating back to 1990 to complement an expected declaration of its nuclear programs, administration and congressional officials said yesterday.

The United States is seeking access to those records, as well as samples from toxic waste and the destruction of the "cooling tower" at the North's main nuclear complex in response to criticism that it is lowering the bar in negotiations with Pyongyang, the officials said.

"The administration is trying to work out the arrangements necessary to verify the accuracy of the North Korean declaration," one official said in reference to an account of the North's nuclear programs required in six-nation talks to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.

"We need to secure access not only to records, but also to waste product," said the official, who, like all other sources interviewed for this article, asked that his name not be used because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The tentative agreement was reached last week in Pyongyang between Kim Kye-gwan, the chief North Korean negotiator, and Sung Kim, director of the Korea office at the State Department, officials said.

North Korea missed a Dec. 31 deadline to disclose details of its nuclear past, a key step in negotiations in which the North would receive aid and other economic assistance for giving up atomic weapons and the ability to produce them.

The Bush administration has been holding off on announcing the latest deal to give the North Korean diplomat time to clear it with his superiors. Officials said they were waiting for official confirmation from Pyongyang, which could come as early as today.

The United States estimates that North Korea has between 65 and 110 pounds of plutonium. It triggered a small nuclear explosion in an October 2006 test.

"The North Koreans were more forthcoming than they have been in the past about their plutonium effort," a senior administration official said about last week's meetings.

"I'm talking about their willingness to disclose what their program looks like — the elements, how the whole thing was put together, the facilities and processes by which they came up with the plutonium for weapons," he said.