NORTH Korea yesterday confirmed 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.

NORTH Korea’s top nuclear envoy has told former US officials that Pyongyang wants more than half a million tonnes of fuel oil a year in return for suspending its atomic reactor, a Japanese daily said yesterday.

THE United States says it is taking conflicting North Korean statements on its nuclear capability very seriously despite the South’s insistence that there was no real proof its neighbour had such weapons.