Now what will North Korea's nuclear scientists do?

BEIJING, July 27 (Reuters) North Korea's main atomic complex now stands dormant under international watch, but nations seeking to end its nuclear threat face the problem of what to do with the scientists who gave the poor state its budding arsenal.

International monitors confirmed last week that North Korea had shut key facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex. More monitors arrived in Beijing today, passing through to the site, which is the focus of a February disarmament pact.

But for these steps to mature into lasting disarmament, negotiators must run a minefield of complexities -- including the future of the North's atomic scientists, who could restart an arms push or sell secrets to other aspiring nuclear states.

Officials and experts said they have been pondering this issue and it could come up soon in technical talks.

''This becomes relevant at the dismantlement phase, not the current freeze phase which will take us through the end of 2007, early 2008, assuming the best,'' said Peter Hayes of the Nautilus Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank that specialises in North Korea.

''Yes, there are proliferation risks from footloose experts, defectors, or refugees from the DPRK (North Korea). Yes, there are people worrying about this in the US and other governments.'' Estimates of how many people work on North Korea's nuclear programmes are guesswork, reflecting the secrecy of its reactors, plutonium production, and -- according to U.S. claims -- enrichment of uranium for potential use in weapons.

PATH OF KHAN Yongbyon, about 100 km north of the capital Pyongyang, has been estimated to employ roughly 2,000 scientists and staff of varying skill, intelligence sources say.

Unlike the arms engineers of the former Soviet Union, the North Korean experts are far from the forefront of their field. But they have honed skills in old technology that could spread with relative ease.

Washington and the North's neighbours worry they could follow the path of Pakistan's Abdul Qadeer Khan, who became a merchant of nuclear secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea itself.

A more immediate concern is that failing to assure the scientists' future could give Pyongyang another reason to resist disarmament.

''These guys aren't a proliferation risk per se unless North Korea collapses,'' said Joel Wit, a former US State Department disarmament expert who has visited the North.

''But the real concern is that in the context of the agreement the North Koreans are going to turn to us and ask, 'What do we do with these guys?' Solving that is going to be an absolute requirement from the North Korean side.'' The chief U.S. envoy in the six-country disarmament talks, Christopher Hill, said last week the topic had not come up in recent negotiations but the North was concerned.

''I know it's very much on the minds of the North Korean officials,'' he told reporters in Beijing.

Foreign experts have been talking with North Korea about finding solutions.

''My impression from talking to them is that they're really interested in re-establishing cooperation,'' said Wit.

DATING SERVICE One proposal inspired by US aid to post-Cold War Russia would set up a ''dating service'' to introduce scientists to peaceful commercial work, said Jon Wolfsthal of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Such cooperation would also help outsiders gauge North Korea's nuclear strengths and find possible gaps in disarmament controls, said Wolfsthal.

The North's neighbours -- China and South Korea -- are also eager to have a say in the scientists' future.

''The South Koreans are so anxious in fact that they want to do this on their own,'' said Wolfsthal.

A Seoul National University nuclear engineer, Lee Un-chul, said South Korea will probably end up giving them jobs, ''even if it means giving them a nice job at a factory''.

North Korea insists its nuclear scientists will also work on the light-water reactors it has demanded in return for disarmament, said Hayes.

Pyongyang nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan last week repeated the demand for the reactors, which do not make weapons-usable plutonium with anything like the ease of graphite-moderated ones such as Yongbyon.

Under a 1994 disarmament deal that collapsed in 2002, the United States agreed to help build North Korea two light-water reactors, which now lie uncompleted.

REUTERS AE ND1035