North Korea said yesterday it would start implementing a nuclear
disarmament deal struck in February and awaits a visit by UN
inspectors now that a dispute over its funds frozen at a Macao bank
had been resolved.
A team of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors
arrived in Beijing yesterday and is scheduled to go to Pyongyang
today to help lay the groundwork for shutting down the North's
reactor and source of bomb-grade plutonium.
"As the funds that had been frozen at Macao's Banco Delta Asia
have been transferred as we demanded, the troublesome issue of the
frozen funds is finally resolved," the North's KCNA news agency
quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
He said there could now be "action for action".
"As part of that, there will be discussions with (IAEA)
delegates on June 26 in Pyongyang on shutting down nuclear
facilities and inspections and monitoring."
The North said the amount of the funds may not have been all
that large but the freezing the assets was an example of what it
saw as a hostile policy toward it by Washington.
Analysts said the main reason Pyongyang was upset about the US
action was that it effectively cut off their access to
international banking.
The North said it would use the frozen funds for humanitarian
purposes.
US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill, who made a rare and surprise
overnight visit to Pyongyang last week, said he expects the North
to start shutting its Soviet-era Yongbyon reactor in the next two
to three weeks.
The North Korea had refused to honor the disarmament-for-aid
deal struck by the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and
China until it got the money back.
The Yongbyon complex is at the heart of the North's nuclear arms
program and includes a plutonium reprocessing plant.
While the first step of the deal calls for a closure of the
North's nuclear facilities in exchange for fuel oil, the goal of
the six-party talks is for the North to completely scrap its
nuclear arms program in exchange for massive aid, security
guarantees and better diplomatic standing.
"Now we are going to negotiate how to verify and make sure the
reactor will be shut down and sealed, so this is the next step on
this long trip," Olli Heinonen, the IAEA's deputy director in
charge of global nuclear safeguards, told reporters at Beijing's
international airport.
Heinonen's four-member team is expected to stay for five days in
North Korea.
The North ejected IAEA inspectors in December 2002 after the
United States charged it with having a secret program to enrich
uranium. It tested its first nuclear device in October 2006,
drawing widespread condemnation and UN sanctions.
Despite signs of a reduction in tension, Pyongyang's official
Rodong Sinmun newspaper accused Washington earlier
yesterday of preparing for an attack.
"The US anachronistic hostile policy and moves for military
confrontation... (are) escalating the tensions on the Korean
Peninsula and increasing the danger of war," the newspaper said,
according to KCNA.
(China Daily via agencies June 26, 2007)
