Bush makes a personal nuclear plea to N. Korea

WASHINGTON —  In his first known direct communication with the leader of North Korea, whom his administration has called a “tyrannical rogue,” President Bush sent Kim Jong Il a hand-signed letter reminding him of his commitment to disclose the details of his country’s nuclear weapons program by the end of the year, the White House said Thursday.

The letter was one in a series Bush dispatched to the participants of the six-nation talks aimed at securing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. It was given to the North Korean foreign minister Saturday, the White House said.

Moving into the final year of his term, Bush appeared to be using his personal involvement to pressure North Korea and others in the talks to stay on track with their efforts to resolve what has long been one of the most intransigent issues on Washington’s foreign policy agenda. At the same time, the letter to Kim suggested that Bush, to accomplish that goal, was setting aside the scorn he had heaped on the mercurial leader, whose country he yoked with Iran and Iraq in 2002 in an “axis of evil.”

On Oct. 3, North Korea reaffirmed a previous commitment to provide details by the end of the year about its nuclear program, including the number of weapons in its arsenal and the extent of its program to enrich uranium, which can be used in a nuclear power plant or in a nuclear warhead.

It agreed, among other things, to list precisely how much weapons-grade nuclear material it has produced and whether it has provided nuclear material or information to others.

The agreement represented a major shift since North Korea’s long-clandestine nuclear program produced an underground nuclear explosion more than a year ago.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said the letter to the North Korean leader -- which began “Dear Chairman,” reflecting Kim’s role as chairman of the country’s National Defense Commission -- was sent as a “reminder” of the commitment to provide “a complete and accurate declaration” about the nuclear operations.

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who delivered the letter, had already made similar points to North Korean officials, but they appeared to have signaled that whatever report they produced by the Dec. 31 deadline would be incomplete.

Speaking with reporters as she flew to NATO meetings in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that the deadline may be slipping, but she did not appear overly concerned.

“It is going to take a monumental effort to get all of this done by the end of the year,” she said, according to the Associated Press. “And I am not too concerned about whether it’s Dec. 31 or not. They seem to be on track. Everybody believes the cooperation is very good.”

The government in Pyongyang has not responded publicly to Bush’s gesture. But analysts in Asia said the North Korean leadership would almost certainly welcome the turnaround, which appeared to vindicate its long-held tactic of waiting out democratically elected governments.

“Bush has increased his fixation on legacy issues,” said Andrew O’Neil, a senior lecturer at Australia’s Flinders University. “There’s a hint of desperation.”

Though the letter gives Pyongyang great “face,” something Kim’s government is obsessed with, it presumably contains no new specifics on normalizing relations or removing North Korea from the U.S. terrorist list, issues of most concern to the isolated leadership.

“Of course, smiling diplomacy is good to help bring progress in the future,” said Jin Linbo of the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing. “But I don’t see a big breakthrough or development in which Kim Jong Il tells everything.” Pyongyang almost always moves deliberately and incrementally, he added.

According to Kurt Campbell, a former senior National Security Council and Pentagon official who leads the Center for a New American Security, a Washington policy research organization, Hill delivered the letter after beginning talks with the North Koreans. That suggested that the envoy and other administration officials felt a need to use the president’s personal statement to hammer home their insistence that Pyongyang live up to the full agreement.

At the same time, Campbell said, by sending similar letters to the other negotiating partners -- South Korea, China, Russia and Japan -- Bush told them that a failure by North Korea to honor its pledge would be a slap in the face for each of them.

On several occasions, Bush has gone out of his way to include Chinese President Hu Jintao in the effort directed at North Korea. That has added heft to the international campaign, and it has also brought Hu in as a negotiating partner, giving him a stake in the outcome because North Korea’s failure to fulfill its commitments would therefore be a snub to China.

Bush and Hu spoke by telephone Thursday about North Korea and Iran, the White House said.

Paraphrasing the letter to Kim, Perino said that Bush wrote: “This is the agreement that you have agreed to; you have a commitment for this full and accurate declaration.”

She said the declaration that North Korea promised to deliver was to include “all nuclear facilities, materials and programs,” and was to also detail uranium enrichment programs and activities.

She refused to make the letter public.

The agreement was reaffirmed in a flurry of diplomatic activity at the beginning of October, including a visit by South Korean President Roh Moo- hyun to Pyongyang and a meeting of the six negotiating nations in Beijing.

As in his efforts to persuade Iran to back off from efforts to enrich uranium, Bush has held out the carrots of wider economic assistance for North Korea and comprehensive peace talks, as well as removal of the country from the State Department’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism, if it follows through on a promise to disable its reactor at Yongbyon.

The letter demonstrated the administration’s efforts to keep on track an agreement that depends on the cooperation of the diminutive North Korean leader, whom Bush has reportedly referred to in the past as a “pygmy.”

“If you informed most experts in the aftermath of North Korea’s October 2006 nuclear test that President Bush and North Korea’s President Kim Jong Il would be pen pals by the end of 2007, they’d laugh in disbelief,” said Andrew J. Grotto and Joseph Cirincione of the Center for American Progress, another Washington think tank, in a written statement.

But, they said, the letter could be the “personal push” needed as the deadline nears, given the value that North Korea places on displays of respect and the need to assure Pyongyang that Bush has endorsed the policy enunciated in the recent talks.

“The letter accomplishes both purposes,” they wrote.

james.gerstenzang@ latimes.com

Times staff writer Mark Magnier in Beijing contributed to this report.