N. Korea to allow U.N. monitors to tour reactor

U.N. inspectors headed to North Korea’s key nuclear reactor today for the first time since 2002 to discuss plans to shut the plutonium-producing facility under an international accord.

Olli Heinonen, deputy director general of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, said his team would tour the Yongbyon facility, about 60 miles north of Pyongyang, the capital, and discuss arrangements for verification of the reactor shutdown and monitoring.

He emphasized Wednesday that the visit was not a formal inspection. An inspection would require an official agreement outlining how it would be conducted, subject to approval by the Vienna-based IAEA board of governors.

The trip to the facility, at North Korea’s invitation, is the first by IAEA monitors since they were expelled in late 2002.

North Korea agreed in February to close the Yongbyon reactor in exchange for economic aid and political concessions. But the communist nation ignored an April deadline to do so because of a banking dispute with the United States.

That dispute was settled this week, and North Korea announced Monday that it would move forward with the disarmament deal.

The Yongbyon reactor is at the center of efforts involving five countries -- China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States -- to stop North Korea’s nuclear program. Pyongyang carried out its first atomic test explosion in October.

Heinonen, whose team arrived in North Korea on Tuesday, declined to comment on the discussions with officials, but said he expected talks to conclude Friday.

“The atmosphere is good,” he said by telephone.