NKorea invites in atom bomb shutdown monitors--IAE

VIENNA, July 11 (Reuters) North Korea has invited in International Atomic Energy Agency monitors to verify a promised shutdown of its atomic bomb programme and they will travel to the country within the next few days, the IAEA said.

The agency's receipt of a formal invitation signalled that Pyongyang expected it would receive a first batch of fuel oil from South Korea later this week, a step it had said would allow it to start closing sensitive nuclear facilities.

North Korea gave the monitors the go-ahead yesterday a day after the IAEA's 35-nation governing body authorised the mission, expected to comprise nine monitors who will also install surveillance cameras, to get under way shortly.

It would be the first IAEA mission in the reclusive Stalinist state since it expelled IAEA inspectors in 2002 after the United States accused it of a clandestine effort to enrich uranium as fuel for nuclear weapons.

''Following receipt of an invitation today (Tuesday) from the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea, an IAEA team will travel to the DPRK within the next few days,'' the agency said in a statement, using North Korea's official name.

''The team will implement arrangements agreed between the IAEA and DPRK and approved by the agency's board of governors to undertake verification and monitoring of the shutdown and sealing of the DPRK's Yongbyon nuclear facilities.'' Under a February 13 deal with five powers, Pyongyang pledged to shut its antiquated Yongbyon reactor and allow IAEA personnel back into the country in exchange for 50,000 tonnes of fuel oil supplied by South Korea for its energy-starved neighbour.

Earlier yesterday, Chinese and South Korean news agencies said Beijing wanted to resume talks on completely disabling North Korea's nuclear arms programme -- for which Pyongyang would get 950,000 more tonnes of fuel oil -- next week.

The session could coincide with Pyongyang starting to shut its reactor -- its source of weapons-grade plutonium, South Korea's Yonhap and Japan's Kyodo news agencies reported.

China, which has hosted all the previous sessions, will propose convening the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States for two or three days from July 18, they said, citing diplomatic sources in Beijing.

China itself said it was seeking a meeting of the heads of the six parties in mid-July but that no date had been set.

''China is in close coordination with the other parties,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a news conference.

A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said last week that the North was considering suspending operations at its nuclear facilities as soon as the first fuel oil shipment -- due to leave Seoul on Thursday -- reaches its ports.

Its journey is expected to take two days, and IAEA monitors could head for NK around the same time, Vienna diplomats said.

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