North Korea and the United States took their biggest steps towards reconciliation since the Korean War yesterday after the reclusive state handed China a long-delayed account of its nuclear activities.

President Bush responded by announcing that he would lift trade sanctions dating back to the 1950-53 conflict and remove North Korea from the US terrorism blacklist. The moves could be reversed quickly if North Korea, which tested a nuclear device two years ago, does not comply with US demands to abandon its nuclear programme in a verifiable way.

Many other apparent breakthroughs have never materialised in six-party talks between North Korea, the US, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia over the past few years. Nonetheless, it was a remarkable turnaround in US policy towards the Communist regime in Pyongyang, which Mr Bush branded part of an “axis of evil” after the September 11 attacks.

It also offers the best hope so far of the two countries — which are technically still at war — negotiating a peace treaty and establishing conventional diplomatic ties.

Analysts say that the moves reflect North Korea’s increasingly desperate need for food aid and fuel, and Mr Bush’s desire for a foreign policy victory before he leaves office in January.

Mr Bush made it clear that he remained suspicious about North Korea, which attacked the South in 1950 with Soviet backing, prompting America to send troops to support the Government in Seoul. “The United States has no illusions about the regime,” he said in a statement at the White House. “We will trust you only to the extent you fulfil your promises.”

The North Korean declaration, handed to Chinese officials by the North Korean Ambassador in Beijing, falls short of what the Bush Administration once sought and will not satisfy many hawks in Washington and Tokyo. The 60-page document, covering nuclear production back to 1986, included information on the country’s plutonium programme, uranium enrichment and proliferation activities, a State Department statement said. North Korea is due today to demolish the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, the source of its weapons-grade plutonium.

The declaration did not include a list of North Korea’s atomic weapons, which US officials say will come in a later phase of the negotiations. It also does not explain how North Korea allegedly helped Syria to build what senior American intelligence officials say was a secret nuclear reactor to make plutonium. Israeli jets bombed the structure last September.

Nevertheless, Mr Bush notified Congress that, in 45 days, he intended to take North Korea off the State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism, which includes Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. North Korea was listed as a terrorist state in 1988, the year after its agents blew up a South Korean airliner with 115 people on board. Its spies also killed three members of the South Korean Cabinet in Burma in 1983.

Mr Bush reassured conservative critics that his actions would have little impact on North Korea’s economic and diplomatic isolation because UN sanctions would remain in place.

He also said that the US would monitor North Korea closely and “if they don’t fulfil their promises, more restrictions will be placed on them”.

North Korea must dismantle all of its nuclear facilities and resolve outstanding questions on its highly enriched uranium and proliferation activities “in a way that we can fully verify”.

Milestones

1950 North Korea, backed by the Soviet Union, attacks South Korea, prompting the United States to send troops to back Seoul

1953 Korean War ends in a ceasefire rather than a peace treaty

1994 North Korea agrees with US to shut down Yongbyon nuclear plant in return for two light-water reactors, but both sides default

2003 Six-party talks begin but make little progress for next four years

2006 North Korea tests nuclear device

2007 North Korea agrees to disable Yongbyon and reveal past nuclear acitivity in return for energy and aid.

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