UN Nuclear Watchdog Chief Tipped to Visit North Korea 13-15 March

Feb 28, 06:34 AM

Current Headlines: Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo

Seoul, Feb. 28 Kyodo - International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei is scheduled to visit North Korea on March 13-15 to discuss nuclear issues, a diplomatic source in Seoul said Wednesday.

The UN nuclear watchdog chief is expected to discuss with North Korea about a freeze of its nuclear facilities and their eventual dismantlement following an agreement in the six-party talks on curbing that country's nuclear ambitions. The talks involve North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

In the latest round of the nuclear talks held in Beijing earlier February, North Korea agreed to begin shutting down the nuclear facilities in return for fuel oil and humanitarian aid as initial steps to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.

ElBaradei's trip to North Korea will be the first by the IAEA chief since Hans Blix, former head of the agency, visited the country in 1992.

He is scheduled to leave Vienna, where the IAEA is based, on March 11 and arrive in Beijing on March 12 before flying into Pyongyang the following day, the source said. He will return to Beijing from the North Korean capital on March 15.

Earlier this month, ElBaradei said he had received an invitation from North Korea to visit the country. He said North Korea wrote in its invitation that it wants to normalize relations with the IAEA and rejoin the organization.

In June 1994, North Korea, which had been an IAEA member since 1974, withdrew its membership in the agency, and said it was no longer obligated to allow IAEA inspectors to carry out their work at its nuclear facilities under a safeguards agreement with the agency.

However, after signing a deal with the United States known as the Agreed Framework on freezing its nuclear facilities in October 1994, North Korea had allowed IAEA inspectors to be stationed for about eight years at the Yongbyon nuclear complex and other sites to monitor a freeze on nuclear activities until the end of 2002.

North Korea expelled the inspectors then due to a nuclear impasse triggered by its alleged admission that it was covertly pursuing a programme to enrich uranium for use in developing nuclear weapons in violation of the 1994 agreement.

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