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Inspectors head to nuclear site
28/06/2007 09:19 - (SA)
Pyongyang, North Korea - UN inspectors headed to North Korea's key nuclear reactor on Thursday to discuss a long-delayed shutdown of the plutonium-producing facility, as the country came under increasing criticism for launching missile tests this week.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe slammed North Korea's communist government over the short-range missile launches, calling them a provocation that could destabilise the region and a defiance of the United Nations.
"We need to seek a harsh response from the international community," Abe said in Tokyo.
North Korea boosted the urgency in the international stand-off over its nuclear programme in October when it mounted its first atomic test explosion. The UN Security Council condemned the move and passed a resolution saying North Korea must, among other things, abide by a missile-test moratorium.
"I do not think this will directly affect our security," Abe said of this week's missile testing. "But in any case it is a violation of the UN Security Council resolution."
US officials made similar comments in Washington.
Not a formal inspection
"We expect North Korea to refrain from conducting further provocative ballistic missile launches, activity that is destabilising to the security of northeast Asia," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesperson for the US National Security Council.
Meanwhile, a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency made its way from the North Korean capital to the Yongbyon reactor, about 100km to the northeast.
The five-megawatt reactor, believed capable of churning out enough plutonium for one atomic bomb per year, is at the centre of the international efforts to halt North Korea's nuclear programme.
The team was invited by North Korea to discuss details of shutting down the reactor, as it pledged under an international accord in February. It is the first IAEA trip to the facility since its monitors were expelled from the country in late 2002.
"We go to see the facilities and continue our discussions in more details," Olli Heinonen, deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in footage shot by APTN at his Pyongyang hotel before he departed for the Yongbyon complex.
Heinonen, whose team arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday, declined to provide details of his discussions with North Korean officials so far and emphasised that the visit to Yongbyon, expected to last into Friday, was not a formal inspection.
"We are here to talk about the verification and monitoring arrangement," Heinonen said.
Asked if the North might begin to shut down the reactor during his visit there, Heinonen told reporters that he and his team will see "what we have on the table" on Friday evening.
- AP
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