UN nuclear watchdog confirms NKorea cooperation

VIENNA (AFP) - North Korea is cooperating with UN nuclear inspectors, shutting down five key facilities and allowing access to nuclear material, the UN watchdog agency said in a report yesterday.

The report by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammed ElBaradei confirms breakthrough progress made since agency inspectors visited North Korea in July for their first inspection since being thrown out of the communist country in 2002.

They are monitoring Pyongyang's first steps in shutting down its nuclear weapons programme.

The report said the agency has monitored the shutdown of North Korea's main nuclear plant at Yongbyon "and is continuing to implement the ad hoc monitoring and verification arrangement with the cooperation of the DPRK (North Korea)."

The report is to be presented at meetings in Vienna in September of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors and a general conference of the agency's 144 member states.

IAEA inspector Adel Tolba had said in Beijing on July 31 after his team's two-week visit "that in doing our activities we had complete cooperation from DPRK authorities."

Yesterday's report said North Korea has shut down at Yongbyon a nuclear fuel fabrication plant, a reprocessing plant, a five megawatt experimental nuclear reactor and a 50 megawatt reactor.

In addition, a 200 megawatt reactor was shut down in Taechon.

The larger power plants were under construction while the five megawatt plant has produced plutonium for atom bombs.

The IAEA said North Korea "had provided access to the nuclear material... for monitoring."

It said it was continuing its inspections and "has implemented, with the cooperation of the DPRK, appropriate monitoring and verification measures."

These include "photographic records," the report said.

The IAEA is now maintaining a permanent presence in North Korea.

The closure of Yongbyon and return of IAEA inspectors were the first steps in a February six-nation accord under which North Korea agreed to eventually scrap all its nuclear programmes in exchange for aid, diplomatic concessions and security guarantees.

The six-nation talks continued this week with meetings in the city of Shenyang in China's northeast, close to the border with North Korea.

"I think it was a productive two-day session, very businesslike, very specific," US assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill told reporters yesterday.