US group on nuke issue heads for North Korea
A working group of the US experts left here today for North Korea to begin the disabling of the nuclear facilities early next week.
By PTI |
BEIJING: A working group of the US experts left here today for North Korea to begin the disabling of the nuclear facilities early next week.
The main focus of the visit "is to go there and get (disablement) started as soon as possible," Sung Kim, director of the US State Department's Office of Korea Affairs, heading the nine-member team, said.
"As soon as we are set up in Yongbyon we will begin. Hopefully, early next week," Kim was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.
The team is scheduled to stay there for one or two weeks, to be replaced by another.
Top envoys from North Korea and the United States yesterday held talks on how they should progress till the end of the year on the disablement issue.
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Under a breakthrough deal worked out after the six-party talks involving the host China, North Korea, the US, South Korea, Japan and Russia, here in October, Pyongyang agreed to disable all existing nuclear facilities and provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programmes by the year end.The joint document issued at the end of talks then said the disabling of the five megawatt Experimental Reactor, the Reprocessing Plant (Radiochemical Laboratory) and the Nuclear Fuel Rod Fabrication Facility in Yongbyon would be completed by December 31.
"China hopes to see that the second-phase actions set in an October document would be implemented comprehensively and with balance," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular news briefing here.
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