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SEOUL-North Korea is almost done with preparations to make a long-overdue declaration of its nuclear programs, a South Korean envoy said on Sunday.The declaration is part of a broader multilateral deal under which North Korea, which detonated an atomic device in October 2006, has agreed to abandon all its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives."The U.S. needs more time, while North Korea's preparations are almost done," Seoul's chief negotiator to nuclear talks, Kim Sook, told a press briefing after meetings with his U.S. and North Korean counterparts over the past few days in Beijing.Earlier last month, the top U.S. negotiator with Pyongyang, Christopher Hill, said North Korea appeared close to making the declaration.The declaration was held up also partly because of the North's reluctance to answer U.S. suspicions that it transferred nuclear technology to other countries, notably Syria, and had a secret program to enrich uranium for weapons.Once the declaration has been produced, the United States is expected to drop North Korea from its terrorism blacklist and end sanctions imposed under the U.S. Trading With the Enemy Act.North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia have been involved in long-running "six-party" talks aimed at curtailing North Korea's nuclear plans, a process that intensified after Pyongyang's 2006 nuclear weapon test.Pyongyang raised tensions on Friday by firing three short-range missiles off its west coast.A similar launch in March riled regional tensions and was seen by analysts as a display of anger at Washington and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's new conservative government in Seoul.As in the days of Noah....
