US urges caution on NKorea shutdown

TOKYO (AFP) - The chief US nuclear envoy said Sunday the world needs to watch North Korean moves cautiously as UN inspectors start verifying whether Pyongyang has shut down its main nuclear reactor.

"We need to caution everybody that this is just the first step," US envoy Christopher Hill said early Sunday, noting that Pyongyang had informed the US mission to the United Nations of the shutdown.

"This is only a meaningful step in so far as it will be followed by other steps," said Hill, who has spent years in negotiations over the North Korean nuclear program.

He said the UN inspection team should get reports later Sunday on the exact situation at Yongbyon.

"I think by the end of today they will be able to give us reports on the five facilities," he said as he left the resort town of Hakone southwest of Tokyo.

North Korea confirmed later Sunday that it has shut down its Yongbyon atomic reactor, the first step in a process designed to rid it of nuclear weapons.

The announcement came a day after International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors arrived in the secretive North to verify the reactor shutdown.

Hill remained cautious as he left Tokyo's Haneda airport for Seoul on Sunday.