Representatives from six parties to head for Yongbyon

BEIJING—Representatives from six parties to the Korean nuke talks will head for Yongbyon in Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) from Nov. 27 to 29, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang announced here Monday.
Qin said the six parties, China, the DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Russia and Japan, have agreed to jointly send representatives there to learn about the implementation of nuclear facilities disablement. The DPRK shut down Yongbyon nuclear reactor in July. It agreed to disable all existing nuclear facilities and to provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs by the end of this year, according to a joint document released on Oct. 3 when the second phase of the sixth round of six-party talks ended in Beijing.
The document said the disabling of the five megawatt Experimental Reactor, the Reprocessing Plant (Radiochemical Laboratory) and the Nuclear Fuel Rod Fabrication Facility in Yongbyon would be completed by Dec. 31. All sides participating in the six-party talks reached an agreement Tuesday with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to disable its nuclear facilities in exchange for energy assistance, said a South Korean official. The DPRK agreed to start the disablement of its nuclear facilities in exchange for energy assistance from other related parties, said Lim Sung-nam, South Korea’s representative at a working-group’s talks at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom.
“We had very productive and specific technical discussions,” Lim said. “The sides reached an unofficial understanding that the promised energy assistance equivalent to 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil will be provided in the form of 450,000 tons of heavy oil and other assistance equivalent to 500,000 tons of heavy oil,” Lim said. Representatives from China, the United States, the DPRK, South Korea, Russia and Japan launched the two-day working-group talks at Panmunjom Monday. The DPRK sparked world alarm in October 2006 by testing its first nuclear weapon. But it agreed in February to declare and disable its nuclear programs in return for 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent energy aid.—Xinhua