Pyongyang confirms reactor shutdown

SEOUL—North Korea confirmed Sunday that it had shut down its Yongbyon atomic reactor under UN supervision, the first step in a process designed to rid the communist state of nuclear weapons.
The closure of the facility, which produces plutonium for nuclear weapons, is the first step taken by Pyongyang toward ending its atomic programme since 2002, and the first phase of a six-nation disarmament deal reached in February. The United States, South Korea and Russia — parties to the six-nation talks with the North along with China and Japan — welcomed the move, but Washington said more needed to be done to speed up the disarmament process. “We shut down the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and allowed the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) personnel to monitor it on the 14th, when the first shipment out of 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil arrived,” a foreign ministry spokesman told the official Korean Central News Agency.—Agencies