North Korea to resume nuclear dismantlement

[October 14, 2008]  SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea planned to resume dismantling its nuclear program Tuesday for the first time in two months, days after the United States removed the communist regime from a terrorism blacklist as a reward under a disarmament pact.

Pyongyang has told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it would restart work to disable the Yongbyon nuclear reactor and allow international inspectors to resume their activity. The plans were outlined in a restricted document to the agency's 35 board members that was obtained by The Associated Press.

Separately, IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said agency inspectors "will also now be permitted to reapply the containment and surveillance measures at the reprocessing facility." That meant agency seals taken off the plant and monitoring cameras recently removed at the North's orders would be restored.

The country's official Korean Central News Agency had given no word by Tuesday afternoon if the work had gotten under way. South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said he had no information whether the work had begun.

North Korea also said Sunday it would restart work to disable Yongbyon, though it did not specify a date.

Two months ago, North Korea stopped disabling Yongbyon in anger over U.S. demands that Pyongyang accept a plan to verify its accounting of nuclear programs as a condition for removal from a blacklist of countries accused of sponsoring terrorism.

Until late last week, the North had threatened to reactivate the plutonium reprocessing plant at Yongbyon.

But the North and the U.S. reached a compromise on the verification row following a trip to Pyongyang by chief U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill. Washington announced its removal of the North from the terror list Saturday, saying Pyongyang had agreed to all its nuclear inspection demands.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the resolution of the dispute. His spokeswoman, Michelle Montas, said Ban considered it "another step towards a verifiable non-nuclear Korean Peninsula."

China also hailed the progress and pledged to move the denuclearization process forward as host of the nuclear disarmament talks that involve Japan, the two Koreas, the United States and Russia.

"Promoting the six-party talks process serves the common interests of the involved parties," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in a statement issued late Monday. "China appreciates the constructive efforts made by the concerned parties."

Meanwhile, Japan reiterated its demand that Pyongyang resolve the issue of abductions of its citizens by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s, saying it was a precondition for Tokyo's participation in providing aid to the North.

"We will not join the economic and energy aid under the six-party talks unless issues over Japan-North Korea relations, including the abduction problem, are cleared," Prime Minister Taro Aso told an upper house committee Tuesday.

On Tuesday, North Korea's Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun left for Russia, Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency said, without elaborating.

Moscow's Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said Pak and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would be discussing the status of the six-party talks.

Russia's Itar-Tass news agency said Pak planned to hold talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to "coordinate their approaches" to the nuclear issue.

North Korea alarmed the world in 2006 by setting off a test nuclear blast. It then agreed to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for energy aid and other concessions.

The regime began disabling Yongbyon in November, and blew up a cooling tower in June in a dramatic display of its determination to carry out the process. Just steps away from completing the second phase of the three-part process, Pyongyang abruptly reversed course and stopped disabling the plant, until this week.

[Associated Press; By JAE-SOON CHANG]

Associated Press writer George Jahn in Vienna, Austria, Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, Gillian Wong in Beijing and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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