NKorea nukes must come under UN watchdog: Blix

BEIJING, Nov 13: International inspectors should take charge of examining North Korea's nuclear sites if Pyongyang ever agrees to stop developing atomic weapons, the former chief of the UN nuclear watchdog said in Beijing today.

Only the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could muster the authority and neutrality to coax North Korea towards nuclear disarmament while keeping the trust of the North's distrustful leaders, fearful of US attack, said Hans Blix, the Swedish former head of the Vienna-based nuclear agency.

''It is vital that the inspections be seen as inspections by the international community. It must not be seen as inspection by an adversary,'' he told reporters.

Blix said that as regional powers considered how to handle North Korea, they should avoid the example of Iraq, where the activities of national intelligence agencies blurred international inspectors' neutrality before the US-led invasion.

North Korea staged its first nuclear test on October 9 and later that month agreed to fresh six-party disarmament talks after Washington said it would discuss financial restrictions that have rankled Pyongyang.

The two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia take part in the talks, which Pyongyang boycotted a year ago. No date has been set for the new round, but negotiators hope to meet by the end of 2006.

In 2002, North Korea said it was leaving the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which bars all but a handful of powers from having nuclear weapons, and threw out IAEA inspectors.

Blix said North Korea might return to the six-party talks emboldened by its nuclear test. ''Now they will assume that the world is even more eager to pay, or to give them satisfaction, for moving out of nuclear weapons,'' he said.

REUTERS

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