CHINA'S top nuclear envoy inspected disablement work yesterday at the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear reactor site, amid efforts to have the DPRK meet a year-end deadline to dismantle all its atomic weapons programs.
Wu Dawei was in the DPRK to meet officials, including his counterpart Kim Kye Gwan, to discuss the current situation and future steps, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said yesterday. He did not give details.
The official Xinhua News Agency said Wu also visited the Yongbyon reactor.
"The disablement process is going on smoothly under the procedure agreed by the six-party talks," Wu was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
"The engineers from the DPRK and US are working hard for this (disablement)," Wu said.
An official at the Republic of Korea's Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said nuclear experts began transferring irradiated fuel rods from the plutonium-making reactor in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, to water pools late last week – a key step in disabling the facility.
The DPRK began disabling its Yongbyon reactor last month under watch of US experts and has promised to complete the processes and declare all its nuclear programs at an end by December 31. In exchange, the US agreed to seek normalizing ties with the DPRK and remove the country from terrorism and trade sanctions blacklists.
The agreements were reached in six-party talks among China, the US, Russia, the two Koreas and Japan.
However, the time required to safely remove the fuel rods from the reactor means the year-end deadline for disablement is likely to be missed.
The ROK official said that process is expected to be completed by mid-March, while he hopes 10 other disablement measures would meet their year-end deadline.
