By Zhang Binyang & Gao Haorong

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) submitted the long-waited declaration of its nuclear inventory to China, the chair of the six-party talks, Thursday.

The White House said in a statement shortly after the submission that it would lift trade sanctions against the DPRK and remove it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

A breakthrough of the six-party talks, aimed at stripping the DPRK of its nuclear weapons program, was made, but more progresses were needed to finalize the disarmament process.

PAINSTAKING PROCESS

The declaration, promised to be "complete and accurate" by the DPRK under the October 2007 six-nation joint document, was due to be submitted by the end of that year.

Disagreement between the U.S. and the DPRK officials over the declaration made the DPRK miss the December 31 deadline and deadlocked the so called "second-phase actions for implementation of the September 2005 Joint Statement."

The U.S. and the DPRK disputed mainly on three issues:

- The amount of the plutonium the DPRK has produced. U.S. officials said they believe DPRK has produced about 50kg of plutonium, or enough for about eight nuclear bombs. The DPRK insisted it only had about 30 kg.

- The uranium enrichment program. Washington suspected the DPRK of having a secret program to enrich uranium for weapons.

- Nuclear proliferation. The U.S. accused the DPRK of proliferating nuclear technology and material to the likes of Syria.

The U.S. asked those issues addressed in the declaration but the DPRK repeatedly denied the allegations.

After many rounds of painstaking negotiations, between U.S. top envoy to six-party talks Christopher Hill and his DPRK counterpart Kim Kye Gwan, as well as nuclear experts meeting at working level, a compromise was made over the declaration.

REASONS FOR BREAKTHROUGH

The settlement could be attributed to the flexibility of both sides, especially the U.S. backing off demands that the DPRK disclose its uranium enrichment and proliferation activities as part of the declaration.

Washington has taken a pragmatic stance: rather than let the declaration issue stall the disablement of Yongbyon nuclear facilities started under the October 2007 agreement, it'd better to make a deal to continue to dismantle already-known nuclear abilities.

The DPRK also made well-meaning gestures, including handing over some 18,000 pages of its Yongbyon nuclear logs to the U.S. to qualify its statements on nuclear program.

MEANINGS

The breakthrough made over the declaration was meaningful to the DPRK. Denuclearization was set to be accomplished in line with the principle of "commitment for commitment, action for action."

The U.S. will accordingly start the process of removing the DPRK from a list of state sponsors of terrorism and stop penalizing it under the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act.

If the DPRK was really de-listed and sanctions against it were lifted, the U.S.-DPRK bilateral ties would be improved further, which would also help the DPRK going back into the international community and create a more advantageous international environment for its development.

The improvement of U.S.-DPRK ties will also help ease the tensions on the Korean Peninsula and is conducive to safeguarding peace and stability in the region.

PENDING ISSUES

A new round of six-party talks was likely to be called soon after the declaration. But denuclearization still needs more breakthroughs over many thorny issues to be made.

The U.S. is to verify the accuracy of the declaration in the next weeks and the DPRK should provide full cooperation, otherwise the United States would take corresponding measures, Washington said.

There are media reports saying U.S. and DPRK officials have held several negotiations on the verification issue but to date no information is available about whether consensus or understanding has been reached.

Other issues including accelerating the process of disabling the nuclear facilities of the DPRK and the providing of energy and economic assistance to the country by relevant parties are also to be addressed.

Political issues need more wisdom compared to the technical issues. The Bush administration's request of removing the DPRK from its terrorism and sanctions blacklists may face challenges in the Democrat-dominated Congress.

Otherwise, the Bush administration is counting its White House days. Would the new host of the Oval Office take a new line toward the DPRK?

Tokyo, supposed to normalize relations with the DPRK under the six-party agreement framework, has been critical of any U.S. move to de-list the DPRK until it accounts for all Japanese civilians believed kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s.

All those variables may slow down or even reverse the disarmament of the DPRK's nuclear program and will prove it to be a very long and exhausting process.