IAEA to send team to NKorea this month: Yonhap

Seoul, July 8: The UN's nuclear agency plans to send a team to North Korea as early as next weekend and keep two staff there to supervise and verify disarmament of the North's atomic programme, Yonhap News reported today.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which sent officials to North Korea in late June, will likely send another eight-member team on July 14 or 17, South Korea's Yonhap said, citing several diplomatic sources.

Two of the inspectors will stay in the North for further monitoring, according to the unnamed sources.

The IAEA's board of governors is scheduled to meet tomorrow and is expected to authorise a new inspection mission.

In an aid-for-disarmament deal reached in February, North Korea agreed to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the source of its weapons-grade plutonium, in return for fuel oil.

The North's foreign ministry said on Friday it was considering suspending operations its nuclear facilities as soon as the first shipment of heavy fuel oil reaches its port.

South Korea said on Friday that the first shipment of 6,200 tonnes of fuel oil would set sail on July 12.

North Korea is to receive an additional 950,000 tonnes of fuel oil or other aid of equivalent value if it takes steps to completely disable all its nuclear facilities under the February deal.

North Korea declared in 2005 it had nuclear weapons and last year conducted its first nuclear test. Officials in Seoul have said the test was a failure, which probably pushed Pyongyang to quickly agree to the disarmament deal.

Reuters>