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North Korea Said to Cooperate With IAEA NewsMax.com Wires VIENNA, Austria -- North Korea is prepared to extend its cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog in its mission to shut down the country's nuclear facilities, according to a report made available Tuesday to The Associated Press. The confidential four-page report said North Korea has agreed to provide International Atomic Energy Agency experts with needed technical information, access and other help needed to shut down North Korea's plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear facility. The report will be discussed by the agency's 35-nation board and is expected to be approved as early as Monday, paving the way for the beginning of the IAEA mission overseeing the shutdown and eventual dismantling of the Yongbyon facility. That would effectively start the process of ending the North's nuclear program, which - if carried through - would eliminate it as a nuclear weapons threat. Chinese state media reported Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il said the countries involved in the February deal committing his government to dismantling its nuclear program should follow through on their initial pledges of aid. "Recently there have been signs that the situation on the Korean peninsula has been eased," Kim was paraphrased by Chinese Central Television as saying to Chinese Foreign Ministry Yang Jiechi. Kim said "all the parties should implement the initial actions" of the disarmament agreement reached in February, the report said. The initial steps include the shutdown of the North's main reactor in exchange for economic aid and political concessions. Story Continues Below
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met with Kim in Pyongyang on Tuesday and conveyed a "personal message" from Chinese President Hu Jintao, the North's state media reported. Their meeting was held "in a cordial atmosphere," the official Korean Central News Agency reported, without specifying what was discussed or the content of Hu's message. North Korea's reclusive leader rarely meets foreign guests, and when he does, it sometimes leads to the announcement of an important decision. Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan visited Pyongyang last October after North Korea's first-ever nuclear test explosion. North Korea announced later that month it would end its boycott of six-nation talks on its nuclear program. According to the report made available to the AP in Vienna, North Korea has agreed to the following steps to help the IAEA shutter its facilities: - Give agency experts a list of nuclear facilities that are shut down and sealed and updating the list as needed. - Provide agency personnel "access to all facilities that have been shut down and/or sealed." - Allow the installation of "appropriate containment and surveillance ... and other devices" and other verification methods. - Allow agency experts to "apply safeguards" to make sure that they have full access to North Korea's nuclear program, despite the fact the country insists it is no longer bound by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. These and other points listed in the report "reflect wide-ranging willingness" by North Korea to fulfill its commitments made in February to shut down the Yongbyon facility, said a diplomat accredited to the IAEA and familiar with its involvement in the North Korean nuclear file. The report was the work of IAEA deputy director general Olli Heinonen. It was based on his tour last week of the Yongbyon facility. North Korea had pledged in February to shut down and disable the 5-megawatt reactor, capable of producing enough plutonium to produce one nuclear bomb a year, in exchange for economic aid and political concessions. That landmark agreement was the result of talks between North Korea and the United States, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan. But the country refused for months to act on the promise until it received about $25 million in funds that were frozen in a Macau bank amid a dispute with the U.S. over alleged money-laundering. The U.N. visit was the nuclear watchdog's first trip to the Yongbyon reactor since inspectors were expelled from the country in late 2002. IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei had traveled to North Korea in March but had not visited the facility.
© 2007 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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