TOKYO, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- The dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear facilities by a U.S. team under the six-nation agreement will start Monday, it was announced Saturday.
Chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters in Tokyo the U.S. team, which arrived in North Korea this week, will travel Sunday to Yongbyon, site of the Communist country’s main nuclear facility near the capital Pyongyang, and begin the work the next day on a spent-fuel reprocessing operation, Kyodo news service reported.
The U.S. team is led by Sung Kim, director of the U.S. State Department's Office of Korea Affairs.
The agreement reached in early October among the United States, Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas involves three Yongbyon facilities -- a 5-megawatt experimental nuclear reactor, a nuclear fuel fabrication plant and the spent-fuel reprocessing facility, the report said.
The entire disabling process is to be completed by year end. The complex was shut down and sealed in July, paving the way for the latest step in North Korea’s denuclearization under the six-party agreement in return for massive aid.
North Korea also must disclose all of its nuclear programs by year-end. Hill said that list is expected to be presented soon, Kyodo reported.
