"We are not yet to the trust part, we are still working on the verify part," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday, paraphrasing late president Ronald Reagan's signature phrase, "trust but verify," when dealing with relations and agreements with the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.

"Trust is something that is built up over time and is based on performance and adherence to obligations and, we would see, we would see," McCormack said when asked why Washington would continue to trust North Korea following revelations on Thursday that it helped Syria build an atomic reactor.

Washington charged that the Syrian nuclear facility had a military purpose until Israel destroyed it in a raid in September last year.

The allegation against North Korea came after the reclusive state agreed to come clean on its nuclear weapons program in six-nation talks launched five years ago aimed at disbanding Pyongyang's atomic arsenal.

McCormack said North Korea was confronted over the secret Syrian project in the past several months in the context of the six-party talks, involving the United States, China, the two Koreas, Russia and Japan.

He refused to say how Pyongyang responded.

"I'm not going to share every exchange within the context of those discussions, but I would leave it to them and that they're fully capable of responding in public," he said.

Under the six-party agreement, North Korea has shut down its key nuclear reactor and is in the process of disabling it in return for energy aid and diplomatic and security guarantees.

Pyongyang has however missed a December 31 deadline to declare its nuclear program and its past proliferation record, presumably due to complications over its alleged involvement in the Syrian nuclear facility.

McCormack said that US intelligence information about the North Korea-Syria nuclear links had laid down "a very clear line" in terms of what was required of Pyongyang's declaration.

"So I think they understand very clearly the bar that they need to get over on that part of the declaration," he said.

Lawmakers were shown pictures of the Syrian nuclear site Thursday, which some experts view as a move by the Bush administration to eliminate the issue as any point of contention between the United States and North Korea.

"They can effectively argue that 'we don't need North Korea to provide a declaration (of its proliferation) because we already know what they have done with Syria and then perhaps it can be deemphasized in the negotiations," said Jon Wolfsthal, a weapons expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"This could actually be an attempt by the Bush administration to throw out the garbage because this is an issue that they don't think can be resolved easily, that they don't think is as important as other issues."

Intelligence and administration officials told reporters Thursday that the Syrian nuclear project could have started in 2001, two years before the six-party talks were launched.

The White House said Friday it hoped the revelations would prompt Pyongyang to be more willing to disclose its atomic and proliferation activities.

"The ball is in their court for the next set," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

McCormack also said that the North Korean-Syrian links underscored the importance of verification of nuclear activities within the six-party process, with China taking a lead role in that area.

"And this information has strengthened that case to the point where you have China that is now going to be chairing a group within the six-party mechanism on issues related to verification," he said.

In an editorial published Saturday, The New York Times said North Korea's willingness to sell nuclear technology to Syria was "extremely worrisome."

"Israel's attack has at least ensured that the Syrian reactor will not be a threat," the paper pointed out. "As for Pyongyang's promises to forsake any future sales, that must be vigilantly monitored and verified along with all of its nuclear activities."

earlier related report
NKorea reports progress in US nuke talks amid proliferation claims
North Korea on Thursday reported progress in talks with a US team aimed at restarting a stalled nuclear disarmament deal, as US officials accused Pyongyang of sharing atomic technology with Syria.

The team led by US State Department official Sung Kim spent two days in Pyongyang from Tuesday discussing the North's promised nuclear declaration, an issue that has held up progress on the landmark six-nation pact for months.

"The negotiations proceeded in a sincere and constructive manner and progress was made there," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the communist state's Korean Central News Agency.

"I will just tell you that we had a good visit. We had a very substantive discussio," Kim told reporters in Seoul.

Apparent US concessions over the contents of the declaration, which is supposed to disclose all of the North's nuclear activities, have come under fire from conservatives in Washington.

On Thursday in the US capital, lawmakers were briefed by the White House and the CIA behind closed doors on charges that North Korea helped Syria build a nuclear reactor at a site destroyed by an Israeli raid in September.

The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Pete Hoekstra, was upset that President George W. Bush's administration took several months to brief the full panel.

"By waiting so long to be briefing the intelligence committee and other committees on the (Capitol) Hill, the administration has made it much more difficult that if they do reach some kind of an agreement with the six-party talks, it will be much harder for them to go through the Congress and get these agreements approved," Hoekstra said.

This was "because they have really damaged the relationship between Congress and the administration."

Hoekstra also said the North must answer allegations it helped Syria build the reactor before it can be taken off the US blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism.

"This is a serious proliferation issue both in the Middle East and the country that may be involved in Asia," Hoekstra said.

Syria has denounced the charges.

After a tough stance early in his first term, Bush is now pushing to resolve the nuclear issue before he leaves office next January.

In last year's six-nation deal, the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia agreed to grant North Korea energy aid and major diplomatic and security benefits in return for full denuclearisation.

The United States had also offered to remove Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terrorism as part of the agreement.

The North has begun disabling its plutonium-producing plants but has not produced the declaration promised by the end of 2007. It said it delivered the documentation last November, but the US called it incomplete.

In particular, Washington said Pyongyang must allay suspicions about an alleged secret uranium enrichment programme and suspected proliferation. The North denies both activities.

According to numerous reports, the North, in a face-saving gesture, will now merely "acknowledge" US concerns about uranium enrichment and proliferation in a confidential document to the US.

It would detail its admitted plutonium operation, which is based at the Yongbyon complex, in a formal declaration to talks host China.

In upbeat comments Wednesday, South Korea's Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan said the "last work" on getting the declaration was underway and the six-party talks could resume next month.

An unidentified senior US official told The Washington Post the timing of the Washington briefing was meant to torpedo any deal with North Korea to remove it from the US blacklist.

"Making public the pictures is likely to inflame the North Koreans," the official said. "And that's just what opponents of this whole arrangement want, because they think the North Koreans will stalk off."

earlier related report
Japan presses NKorea after Syria allegations
Japan demanded Friday that arch-rival North Korea come clean about its nuclear programmes after the United States alleged the communist state helped Syria develop a secret nuclear reactor.

Japan said the allegations would be a blow to an already stalled six-nation deal on ending the North's nuclear drive.

"Cooperation between North Korea and Syria is extremely regrettable," Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said after being briefed on the allegations by the US ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer.

North Korea missed a deadline under the six-way deal to declare all of its nuclear programmes by the end of last year as it denied US allegations it was proliferating nuclear technology to Syria and secretly enriching uranium.

"Now that we have this and the United States has this, this could force North Korea to make an admission and pressure them to make a declaration," Komura said.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda also voiced concern about cooperation between Syria and North Korea.

"If there were such relations, I'm concerned that it would be a big problem. We have to resolve the issue at any cost through six-party talks," Fukuda said before heading to Moscow, where he said he may discuss the issue.

The United States accused Syria on Thursday of building a secret nuclear reactor with North Korea's help, charging that the facility had a military purpose until Israel destroyed it in a September raid.

The US accusations came a day after North Korea sounded upbeat after a long stalemate in implementing the six-nation deal, under which it stands to gain badly needed fuel aid, security guarantees and diplomatic benefits.

US media have suggested the timing of the Syria allegations could be an effort by conservatives within US President George W. Bush's adminstration to throw cold water on the six-nation deal as being too weak.

Japan has been the nation most critical of the six-way talks. It has refused to provide any aid due to a dispute with North Korea over its past kidnappings of Japanese nationals.

The US chief negotiator Christopher Hill, in talks with his North Korean counterpart earlier this month, reportedly offered to allow Pyongyang to keep private its reply to certain US allegations, including over cooperation with Syria, while publicly responding on other areas.

Japan has strongly opposed US offers to take North Korea off a list of state sponsors of terrorism in exchange for progress in the six-nation deal.

Hill said there was no connection between the issue and the allegations of cooperation with Syria.

"The criteria for the delisting is quite a separate matter," Hill said in New Haven, Connecticut.

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