UN inspectors visiting North Korea were given permission to visit the communist nation's key nuclear reactor for the first time in nearly five years, a news report said yesterday.
North Korea would allow monitors from the UN nuclear watchdog to visit its Yongbyon nuclear facility today and tomorrow, Japan's Kyodo News agency reported, quoting International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Deputy Director Olli Heinonen.
"Tomorrow [today], we're going to Yongbyon," Heinonen told Kyodo, adding that the inspectors would return to Pyongyang tomorrow.
He declined to comment on discussions with North Korean officials so far, though he described it as "a good meeting."
The North's permission would be the latest sign that Pyongyang is serious in carrying through its disarmament pledge.
North Korea agreed to close the plutonium-producing Yongbyon reactor in February 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 US.
That dispute has finally been resolved this week after months of delay, and Pyongyang announced on Monday that it would move forward with the disarmament deal.
It would be the first time for UN nuclear inspectors to visit Yongbyon since North Korea expelled IAEA monitors in late 2002 after the current crisis broke out with US accusations that Pyongyang had a secret, uranium-based weapons program.
The facility is at the center of international efforts to stop North Korea's nuclear program. The country carried out its first atomic test explosion in October.
Heinonen, whose team arrived in the North's capital on Tuesday, said the officials who greeted his team in Pyongyang were friendly and appeared ready for discussions.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia