WASHINGTON - U.S. President George W. Bush has written to North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il to say Pyongyang must fulfill its promise to reveal all details of its nuclear programs, the White House said on Thursday.
The unusual direct communication between Bush and the communist leader he has professed to loathe was made amid uncertainty over when and how Pyongyang will meet nuclear disarmament steps agreed with Washington.
"The president reiterated our commitment to the six-party talks and stressed the need for North Korea to come forward with a full and complete declaration of their nuclear programs, as called for in the September 2005 six-party agreement," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
"President Bush wrote letters to all the leaders involved in the six party-talks last Saturday, December 1," he said. The group also includes Russia, Japan, China, South Korea.
North Korea shuttered its main reactor in July under a February deal. In exchange for disabling its plutonium production facilities, the impoverished country will receive 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent aid.
As part of the accord reached earlier this year, Pyongyang, which tested a nuclear device last year in defiance of international warnings, must also provide a complete accounting of its nuclear programs by the end of the year.
Both the United States and North Korea made clear on Thursday they could accept some slippage in that deadline.
Pyongyang's KCNA news agency said visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill handed the letter from Bush to North Korea's Foreign Minister on Wednesday. The short report did not disclose any contents of the letter.
In Beijing to brief Chinese officials on his three-day trip to North Korea, Hill made no mention of the letter in earlier news briefings and was not available for immediate comment.
