Tokyo - The International Atomic Energy Agency will send a team of experts to Japan in mid-February for a fresh review of the country's efforts to scrap the disaster-hit nuclear power plant, the government said on Wednesday.
IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano and Industry Minister Yoichi Miyazawa held talks in Tokyo and agreed Japan would accept the mission, Industry Ministry officials said.
The mission will be the first in more than a year and the third since the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, triggered by an earthquake and tsunami.
The IAEA team will assess the process of extracting melted fuels from reactors 1 and 3, and will also look into Japan's ongoing struggle to contain radiation-contaminated water in the plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co, the ministry said.
About 1 000 storage tanks were built to contain large amounts of contaminated water from three reactors that suffered meltdowns as the operator has continued to inject water into the reactors to keep them cool.
The UN nuclear watchdog will also send a safety review team to the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station in Niigata prefecture, run also by Tokyo Electric.
The utility, which is eager to restart the world's largest nuclear plant, agreed to accept the mission, the ministry said.
