IAEA chief to visit North Korea to discuss nuclear program
Saturday, 24 February 2007
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Chief UN nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday said that North Korea, which claims to have the atomic bomb, had invited him to visit within the next few weeks to discuss details of dismantling its nuclear program.
ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he and North Korean authorities would meet on how to "implement the freeze of (nuclear) facilities" and the "eventual dismantlement of these facilities."
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said ElBaradei probably would travel to the North in the second week of March, after the agency board meets on North Korea and Iran, the other country of international nuclear concern.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, on an official visit to Austria and UN agencies in Vienna, said he hoped the invitation will translate into concrete steps in denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.
"I'm convinced that his visit to Pyongyang will make a great contribution to implement the joint statement," he said, referring to the deal agreed on Feb. 13 between North Korea and its five interlocutors - the United States, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea.
"I hope that he and his delegation will be able to discuss with North Korean authorities ... methods on first freezing nuclear facilities and including the eventual dismantlement of all nuclear weapons and facilities," he said. "This will be a good beginning."
While ElBaradei offered no details, his announcement was significant because it signaled the North's further willingness to subject its nuclear program to outside perusal for the first time since withdrawing from the Nonproliferation Treaty three years ago, just weeks after ordering agency inspectors to leave.
Still, it was only the first step in what a UN official described as "a process that could take years."
Ideally that process would include re-establishing monitoring of the plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear facility, then being on site while it is mothballed and then dismantled.
"At the same time, there has to be some kind of declaration of what North Korea has and some way of following that up," said the diplomat, who asked for anonymity in exchange for discussing confidential information with The Associated Press.
Little is know about the North's nuclear program, leaving the outside world to rely mostly on North Korean claims since IAEA inspectors left in December 2002.
Among areas of concern are what the United States insists is a second-track weapons program beyond the North's plutonium-based activities that uses uranium enrichment - the same process that Washington accuses Iran of seeking to perfect in order to develop nuclear arms.
Fleming, the IAEA spokeswoman, said the invitation to ElBaradei arrived earlier in the day and was signed by the head of North Korea's nuclear agency, whom she did not identify.
"He was sure that ... (ElBaradei's) visit would be an opportunity to develop the relationship" between North Korea and the IAEA, "as well as to discuss the problems of mutual concern," Fleming said, paraphrasing the two-paragraph invitation from North Korea's nuclear chief.
Under a Feb. 13 agreement, the North - which said it tested a nuclear weapon Oct. 9 - agreed to dismantle its nuclear facilities and to normalize its relationships with South Korea, Japan and the United States in exchange for oil shipments, other aid and security guarantees.
The deal requires North Korea to first shut down and seal its main nuclear reactor within 60 days of the agreement, accept international monitors and begin discussions with the United States on its other nuclear facilities. In return, the nations will ship the North an initial load of fuel oil.
If North Korea then declares all its nuclear programs and begins to disable its nuclear facilities, it will get a much larger shipment of fuel oil and aid.
