North Korea agrees to disable nuclear programs by year’s end

North Korea agreed Sunday to account for and disable its atomic programs by the end of the year, offering its first timeline for a process long sought by nuclear negotiators, the chief U.S. envoy said.

Kim Gye Gwan, head of the North Korean delegation, said separately that his country’s willingness to cooperate -- in return for “political and economic compensation” -- was clear, but he mentioned no dates.

Christopher Hill, a U.S. assistant secretary of State, said two days of talks between the United States and North Korea in Geneva had been “very good and very substantive” and would help improve chances of a successful meeting this month with Japan, Russia, South Korea and China in six-nation talks aimed at ending the North’s nuclear weapons program and improving its relations with other countries.

“One thing that we agreed on is that the DPRK will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year,” Hill told reporters, using the initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Hill said the declaration will also include the North’s uranium enrichment programs, which the United States fears could be used to make nuclear weapons.

“When we say all nuclear programs, we mean all,” he said.

He said later in response to a question that it was the first time North Korea had offered a timeline for declaring and disabling its nuclear program.

Kim said, “We agreed on a lot of things between the United States and the DPRK. We are happy with the way the peace talks went.”

“We made it clear, we showed clear willingness to declare and dismantle all nuclear facilities,” he said.

Hill said some details remained to be worked out.

Kim said the two sides discussed North Korea’s demand to be removed from the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism.

“We wouldn’t be an enemy country anymore,” he said.

Hill said earlier Sunday that improving U.S. relations with North Korea will depend on other progress in the talks, saying it “is a relationship that we will continue to try to build step by step with the understanding that we’re not going to have a normalized relationship until we have a denuclearized North Korea.”

He said he expected that the next full session of the six-nation talks in mid-September would produce a “more detailed implementation plan for ‘disablement.’ ”