In antinuclear display, N. Korea destroys part of plutonium plant

KYOTO, Japan - North Korea dynamited the dirty gray cooling tower at its deactivated Yongbyon nuclear facility yesterday, a made-for-TV event intended to show the United States and the world that it is serious about abandoning its nuclear-weapons program.

After a loud explosive charge, the 60-foot tower imploded within seconds, melting into a thick white cloud of smoke and dust.

The late afternoon demolition was filmed by TV news crews from the five countries that for years have been pressing Kim Jong Il's totalitarian state to back away from nuclear confrontation.

The tower was the most visible part of a plant that manufactured the plutonium used in the nuclear device North Korea exploded in the fall of 2006. The test explosion frightened the world and prompted the Bush administration to rethink its refusal to negotiate directly with Kim's government.

The slow, fitful and often frustrating negotiations that have since taken place produced high-visibility results this week, with the demolition of the cooling tower and the handing over by North Koreans of a declaration on Thursday that includes details of their plutonium production.

Talks to hammer out a way of verifying what is in the document are expected to begin soon in Beijing, among diplomats from the United States, North Korea, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.

President Bush moved Thursday to drop North Korea, which he had once said was part of an "axis of evil," from a list of countries that sponsor terrorism and to lift some trading sanctions.

Bush was careful, though, to point out that many other sanctions are still in place and that his administration remains "deeply concerned" about North Korea's human-rights abuses and its continuing threat to its neighbors.

North Korea, in its first reaction to the week's events, said yesterday that it welcomes U.S. moves to lift sanctions.

"The U.S. measure should lead to a complete and all-out withdrawal of its hostile policy toward [North Korea] so that the denuclearization process can proceed smoothly," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Destruction of the cooling tower at the disabled Yongbyon plant was more than a symbolic gesture, U.S. officials said, noting that the demolition would make it harder for the North Koreans to revive their nuclear program.

"This was an active reactor," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said from Kyoto, where she was attending a meeting of the Group of Eight, a consortium of major industrialized nations. "This was a reactor that was making plutonium, that made enough plutonium for several devices. . . . So it is important to put North Korea out of the plutonium business."

Rice said, however, that North Korea and the international community have much more work to do.

"We also must deal with proliferation, we must deal with highly enriched uranium, we must verify to the end all of North Korea's weapons," she said.

As for North Korea's motives, analysts in Seoul said that Kim agreed to blow up the cooling tower as a way to speed movement - before President Bush leaves office next January - on North Korea's goal of closer diplomatic and economic ties with the United States.

"Looks like Kim realized that this was his ticket to survival, personally and for his government," said Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul.