North Korea Allows U.N. Inspectors To Visit Nuclear Reactor

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea has told U.N. inspectors they can visit a plutonium-producing reactor that the country has promised to shut down as part of a nuclear disarmament deal, the head of monitoring team said Wednesday.

The inspectors will visit the Yongbyon reactor Thursday, said Olli Heinonen, the deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The trip would be the first by IAEA monitors since North Korea expelled them in late 2002.

Heinonen emphasized, however, that the trip would not be an inspection. “This is just a visit, not inspection,” he said, adding that an inspection would require a formal agreement outlining how it would be conducted, subject to approval by the Vienna-based IAEA board of governors.

The North agreed to close the Yongbyon reactor in February in exchange for economic aid and political concessions. However, the communist nation ignored an April deadline to do so because of a banking dispute with the United States.

That dispute was settled this week after months of delay, and North Korea announced Monday that it would move forward with the disarmament deal.

The Yongbyon reactor is at the center of efforts involving five countries, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States, trying tostop North Korea’s nuclear program.

The North carried out its first atomic test explosion in October. The 5-megawatt reactor, located 62 miles northeast of Pyongyang, is capable of churning out enough plutonium for one atomic bomb per year.

Heinonen, whose team arrived in the North on Tuesday from Beijing, declined to comment on discussions with North Korean officials, but expressed overall satisfaction.

“The atmosphere is good,” he told The Associated Press by telephone from the North. “We held meetings today and expect to have more later today.”

Also Wednesday, North Korea appeared to have test-fired a short-range missile toward waters off the Korean peninsula’s east coast, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing an

unidentified government official. Yonhap said it was believed to be part of a routine training exercise.

The U.S. government reacted sharply. “We expect North Korea to refrain from conducting further provocative ballistic missile launches, activity that is destabilizing to the security of northeast Asia,” said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

Johndroe said the U.S. “is deeply troubled that North Korea has decided to launch these missiles during a delicate time in the six-party talks.”

South Korea’s reaction was muted. The country’s Defense Ministry and Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff both declined to confirm the report.

If confirmed, it would be the third time within a month that the North test-fired a short-range missile. The previous launches were on May 25 and June 7.

Last week, news reports and a South Korean intelligence official said North Korea fired a short-range missile, but the Defense Ministry later said it did not occur.

South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon expressed optimism that the Yongbyon reactor would “will be shut down as early as possible.” He spoke before departing for the United States for talks.

Heinonen told broadcaster APTN just after arriving in Pyongyang on Tuesday that he would be “negotiating arrangements for verification of the shutdown and sealing” of the reactor duringthe five-day trip.

U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill, who visited North Korea last week, said Saturday he believed the shutdown would happen in about three weeks.

In the Philippines, a top U.S. general said Wednesday that the U.S. military would help verify whether North Korea shuts down the reactor as promised and if it tries to move its operations elsewhere.

“We will try to verify the shutdown of Yongbyon in support of and in coordination with other agencies like the IAEA,” U.S. Pacific Commander Timothy Keating told a news conference. “You bet, we’re gonna pay very close attention.”

Associated Press writers Alexa Olesen in Beijing, Jae-Soon Chang

in Seoul, South Korea, and Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines,

contributed to this report.

By KELLY OLSEN

Associated Press Writer

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

AP-NY-06-27-07 1624EDT