North Korea destroys nuclear cooling tower in a bid to 'come in from the cold'

If the dramatic act is accepted by the international community it will be seen by the Bush administration as a victory in its hardline diplomacy towards a state once branded part of an 'axis of evil'.

North Korea shocked the world in October 2006 by by detonating a nuclear bomb in an underground test to confirm its status as an atomic power.

The 60-foot cooling tower at the main reactor complex in Yongbyon is demolished

However, South Korean broadcasters claim they will soon transmit footage of the explosion to provide evidence that the rogue state is taking a new path towards peace.

U.S. President George Bush, who received a declaration of North Koreans intent before the explosion,  yesterday welcomed the declaration but warned North Korea it sill faced 'consequences' if it did not fully disclose its operations and continue to dismantle its nuclear programmes.

Explosion: A South Korean watches TV news of North Korea's dramatic explosion of a nuclear reactor

Hopeful: US President George Bush speaks to the media yesterday about North Korea's declaration to end its nuclear programme

Bush took a step towards removing North Korea from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and issued a proclamation lifting some sanctions under the Trading with the Enemy Act.  

Mr Bush said: 'If North Korea continues to make the right choices it can repair its relationship with the international community. ... If North Korea makes the wrong choices, the United States and its partners in the six-party talks will act accordingly.'

As compensation for the ending its nuclear programme, the energy-starved country is receiving the equivalent of 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil for the initial disarmament steps.

The North's goodwill could also overcome obstacles to delivery of Washington's promised food aid of 500,000 tons and encourage other nations to join in providing humanitarian assistance for its impoverished 23 million people.

The World Food Program says the first shipment of the U.S. food aid is supposed to arrive in Pyongyang this week, although food is not part of the sanctions or nuclear negotiations.

North Korea faces its worst food shortages in years due to severe floods that devastated farmland in 2007.

Axis of evil: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is widely regarded as a reclusive tyrant who has inflicted misery on his innocent people

It has relied on foreign handouts to feed its population since mismanagement and natural disasters devastated its economy in the mid-1990s, when as many as 2 million people are estimated to have died of famine.

The U.S. has acknowledged it is still far from the goal of disarming the North.

Experts believe the North has as much as 110 pounds (50 kilograms) of weapons-grade plutonium, enough for as many as 10 nuclear bombs.

To verify the claim of how much radioactive material it has produced, the U.S. says the North will open access to its reactor for inspectors to pore over the aging equipment and come to their own conclusions.

However, there will be no wide-ranging inspections to survey secret nuclear facilities, some of which are believed hidden in underground tunnels.

The declaration also does not include information on the North's alleged uranium enrichment program or its possible nuclear proliferation to other countries, such as Syria.

North Korea now views its reactor as 'just large pieces of rusting metal,' having already amassed enough nuclear weapons to deter any would-be attacker, said Andrei Lankov, an expert on the North who studied there and is a professor at Seoul's Kookmin University.

'For the dual purposes of blackmail and security, it's sufficient to have a small number of nuclear devices,' he said.

Lankov said the North Koreans will likely never come entirely clean on its bombs.

'They know that without nuclear weapons, nobody will care about them,' he said.