US technical experts were to arrive in South Korea yesterday en route to North Korea to discuss disabling a nuclear program that has already produced at least one atomic bomb.
The team, led by US State Department Director for Korean Affairs Sung Kim, will join Russian and Chinese officials in Pyongyang today to begin a five-day survey of key nuclear facilities.
The visit is seen as a hopeful sign that the communist state, which tested its first atomic bomb last October, is now serious about permanently shutting down its nuclear plants.
Kim, who is also deputy US nuclear negotiator at the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear disarmament, will likely have talks over dinner with his South Korean counterpart Lim Sung-nam, a Seoul official said.
The team will cross the heavily fortified border between South Korea and North Korea at Panmunjom today.
On Friday, top US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill announced the four-day trip, describing it as "an ambitious phase" in the six-party negotiations.
He is pushing for a permanent nuclear shutdown in North Korea by the end of this year.
The US, China and Russia are the three nuclear powers negotiating with North Korea in talks which also include South Korea and Japan.
The experts will report back to the next session of six-party talks expected this month.
In a landmark six-party agreement on Feb. 13, North Korea agreed to declare and disable all its nuclear programs in return for aid, security guarantees and major diplomatic benefits.
In July, Pyongyang shut down its only operating reactor at the Yongbyon complex in return for 50,000 tons of fuel oil.
The International Atomic Energy Agency last month confirmed the shutdown, along with the closure of a nuclear fuel fabrication plant, a reprocessing plant and a separate 50 megawatt reactor, only partly built, at Yongbyon.
In addition, a 200 megawatt reactor under construction at Taechon was shut.
The next step under the February accord is to permanently disable them by encasing them in concrete or some other method.
If the North declares and disables all its plants it will receive another 950,000 tonnes of fuel oil or equivalent energy aid. The accord also envisages normalization of relations with the US and Japan, an end to US sanctions and a peace treaty on the Korean peninsula.
The accord, however, does not specifically mention any existing nuclear weapons or plutonium stockpiles.
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