SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea planned to resume dismantling its nuclear program Tuesday for the first time in two months, days after the United States removed the communist regime from a terrorism blacklist as a reward under a disarmament pact.
Pyongyang has told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it would restart work to disable the Yongbyon nuclear reactor and allow international inspectors to resume their activity. The plans were outlined in a restricted document to the agency’s 35 board members that was obtained by The Associated Press.
Separately, IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said agency inspectors “will also now be permitted to reapply the containment and surveillance measures at the reprocessing facility.” That meant agency seals taken off the plant and monitoring cameras recently removed at the North’s orders would be restored.
The country’s official Korean Central News Agency had given no word by Tuesday afternoon if the work had gotten under way. South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said he had no information whether the work had begun.
North Korea also said Sunday it would restart work to disable Yongbyon, though it did not specify a date.
Two months ago, North Korea stopped disabling Yongbyon in anger over U.S. demands that Pyongyang accept a plan to verify its accounting of nuclear programs as a condition for removal from a blacklist of countries accused of sponsoring terrorism.
Until late last week, the North had threatened to reactivate the plutonium reprocessing plant at Yongbyon.
But the North and the U.S. reached a compromise on the verification row following a trip to Pyongyang by chief U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill. Washington announced its removal of the North from the terror list Saturday, saying Pyongyang had agreed to all its nuclear inspection demands.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the resolution of the dispute. His spokeswoman, Michelle Montas, said Ban considered it “another step towards a verifiable non-nuclear Korean Peninsula.”
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