North Korea Said to Cooperate With IAEA

By GEORGE JAHN
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 3, 2007; 12:23 PM

VIENNA, Austria -- North Korea is prepared to cooperate with the U.N. agency overseeing the shutdown of the country's nuclear program, 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 is easing," Kim was paraphrased as saying to Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in a ministry statement.

Kim said "all the parties should implement the initial actions" of the disarmament agreement reached in February, a statement posted to the ministry's Web site said. The initial steps include the shutdown of the North's main reactor in exchange for economic aid and political concessions.

It is the first time the North's reclusive leader has spoken publicly about the February disarmament deal.

Yang 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.

Yang told Kim that China wants the pact to be "comprehensively implemented" and hopes relevant parties will "earnestly fulfill their commitments" to help push the international nuclear talks forward, the Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the U.S. does not oppose the release of "some small portion" of fuel aid to North Korea. He stressed, however, that the North must fulfill its obligations under the February accord and shut down its nuclear reactor in the next few weeks.

He said North Korea had not asked for anything beyond the terms of the nuclear agreement. "Good faith is going to be met in turn by good faith," he said.

According to the report made available to the AP in Vienna, North Korea has agreed to several things to help the IAEA, including giving the experts access to all facilities that have been sealed and allowing them to install surveillance devices to verify that they remain closed.

The agreements in the report "reflect wide-ranging willingness" by North Korea to fulfill its commitment to shut down Yongbyon, said a diplomat accredited to the IAEA and familiar with its involvement in the North Korean nuclear file.

The report was based on the work of IAEA deputy director general Olli Heinonen and was compiled after his tour last week of the Yongbyon facility.

North Korea 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.