NKorea says to come clean on nuke prog

Seoul, Aug 18: North Korea is prepared to come clean with a complete inventory of its nuclear programme under a February six-country disarmament deal, its deputy chief nuclear envoy said today.

Two days of talks on how to go about dismantling the North's nuclear weapons programme ended yesterday in the capital of northeast China's Liaoning province, Shenyang, where the US envoy said more wrangling was needed to thrash out key terms.

''We will be be making a transparent disclosure of all nuclear programme and nuclear equipment,'' North Korean foreign ministry official Ri Kun was quoted by South Korea's Yonhap news agency as telling reporters in Shenyang.

Ri is the North's number-two official at six-way nuclear talks, which also involve South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China.

North Korea last month shut its Yongbyon reactor complex that produces weapons-grade plutonium in return for 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil under the first phase of the February 13 deal.

It has also invited back and cooperated with a team of UN nuclear inspectors to verify the shutdown ad set up monitoring arrangements. By completely disabling all its nuclear programmes, the energy-starved and impoverished North is set to receive additional 950,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil or other aid of equivalent value.

The discussions in Shenyang were seeking agreed definitions on what the North must do to ''disable'' its atomic facilities and declare all nuclear activities and materials.

Ri reaffirmed the Yongbyon complex would be subject to full disclosure and disablement, but declined to comment on whether a uranium-based programme that Washington suspects the North of covertly operating would also be included, Yonhap said.

North Korea has previously denied having a uranium enrichment programme. ''We will be doing it comprehensibly, not in any particular order,'' Ri was quoted as saying when asked about how it would proceed with disablement.

Reuters>