U.N. nuclear inspectors to discuss reactor shutdown with N. Korea

The U.N. nuclear watchdog said Monday that it will send inspectors to North Korea next week to discuss how to monitor and verify the shutdown of the north’s nuclear reactor.

The visit announced by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency is the first concrete step toward North Korea’s nuclear disarmament after a weekend breakthrough in a financial dispute that had stalled the process for more than a year.

Separately, Russia’s Interfax-China news agency reported that North Korea plans to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in the second half of July. The report, citing an unidentified North Korean official in Beijing, said the government also proposed holding another round of six-nation disarmament talks after the reactor is halted.

In South Korea, U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill, on a regional tour to discuss the issue with counterparts in China, South Korea and Japan, was upbeat, saying progress was being made.

“Clearly, we’ve made a turn over the weekend,” he told reporters in Seoul before dinner with Chun Yung-woo, his South Korean counterpart. “We’re away from these banking issues, back on to denuclearization issues.”

Chun said North Korea “has no reason to delay,” and the speed of progress depends on its “political will.”

The process of persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear program was stalled for months by a dispute over about $25 million in North Korean funds frozen in a bank in the Chinese territory of Macao blacklisted by the United States.

North Korean state media said Saturday that enough progress had been made on the issue that a “working-level delegation” from the IAEA had been invited to discuss procedures for the verification and monitoring of the reactor’s shutdown. North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors in December 2002.

“Based on our specialists’ evaluations, it will take one month to technically shut down the reactor. This way, we expect to seal it in accordance with agreements reached at six-party talks in the second half of July,” Interfax-China quoted the North Korean official as saying.

North Korea boycotted the nuclear talks for more than a year, saying the financial freeze was a sign of Washington’s hostility. It conducted its first atomic bomb test in October.

Under a February disarmament agreement, South Korea plans to start shipping 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to North Korea by the time it shuts down its nuclear reactor, Chun said earlier.

North Korea eventually is to receive further aid equivalent to 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil in return for irreversibly disabling the reactor and declaring all of the communist nation’s nuclear programs.