U.N. monitors satisfied with visit

POSTED: 3:58 a.m. EDT, June 29, 2007

Story Highlights• Facilities remain operational, Heinonen says
• Heinonen has not indicated a timeline for the reactor's closure
• IAEA's trip was to discuss shutdown and verification procedures with North Korea

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) -- U.N. monitors expressed strong satisfaction Friday with a rare visit to North Korea's main nuclear reactor, praising the communist regime for its cooperation in an indication Pyongyang is serious about meeting its promise to close the facility.

The team from the International Atomic Energy Agency returned Friday to the North Korean capital from a two-day trip to the Yongbyon nuclear complex, broadcaster APTN reported. It was the first IAEA visit to the facility since U.N. monitors were expelled from the country in 2002.

Pyongyang pledged to close Yongbyon in exchange for economic aid and political concessions in an agreement with the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. The purpose of the IAEA trip is to discuss shutdown and verification procedures with North Korea.

"We visited all the places which we are planning to visit and cooperation was excellent," IAEA Deputy Director Olli Heinonen said in footage shot by APTN.

Heinonen, who added that the facilities remain operational, said more discussions were planned Friday with North Korean officials.

The 5-megawatt reactor, believed capable of churning out enough plutonium for one atomic bomb a year, is at the center of international efforts to halt North Korea's nuclear program. North Korea mounted its first atomic test explosion last October.

Heinonen, whose team arrived in North Korea on Tuesday from Beijing, did not indicate a timeline for its closure.

"It's not yet the point of shutdown so that is still to come," he said. Asked by a reporter, however, how many facilities at the complex would likely be closed, he answered, "I think five."

Other facilities his team saw at Yongbyon included an unfinished 50-megawatt reactor, the fuel fabrication plant and reprocessing plant, Heinonen said.

Heinonen said Thursday that the two-day trip to Yongbyon could give a better indication of when North Korea would close the reactor.

"We are here to negotiate the arrangements, so let's see now when we get to Friday evening what we have on the table," Heinonen said in footage broadcast by APTN in Pyongyang before he departed for the reactor.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she hoped for a swift shutdown.

"We hope for now rapid progress given the beginning, we believe, of the North Korean efforts to meet their initial action obligations," Rice said, before meeting South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon.

Song told reporters after the meeting that six-party nuclear talks with North Korea can resume even before the North's reactor closure is completed, as long as Pyongyang starts the shutdown, Yonhap news agency reported.

The Foreign Ministry in Seoul could not immediately confirm the comments.

Though North Korea pledged to close Yongbyon, it ignored an April deadline to do so because of a dispute with Washington over North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank because U.S. allegations of money laundering and other wrongdoing.

That was finally settled this week after months of delays, and North Korea said Monday it would move forward with the disarmament deal.

The February agreement's initial phase calls for North Korea to shut the Yongbyon reactor and receive 50,000 tons heavy fuel oil assistance.

The six parties to the agreement are China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.