North Korea accepts US inspection team

NORTH KOREA has agreed to allow a US delegation to visit its main nuclear complex next week, the first such inspection since the isolated communist country expelled UN monitors more than a year ago.

The visit appears to be an effort by North Korea to prove that it has built a nuclear bomb or capable of doing so and strengthen its negotiating position ahead of planned talks with the United States and four other nations on ending the nuclear standoff.

Pyonyang could also be signalling its willingness to allow more extensive inspections in the future if Washington meets its demands for humanitarian aid and a promise not to attack the North.

USA Today newspaper reported that Washington approved the trip to North Korea's main nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang and it was scheduled for January 6-10.

"The report is true," an official at the South Korean Foreign Ministry said. "The US side has informed us of the trip."

Jason Rebholz, a spokesman of the US Embassy in Seoul, said he had no information on the trip and could not comment on the news report.

It was unclear how much access to key facilities the North would give to the US experts. UN monitors never had full access to the Yongbyon facilities, believed to be the centre of the North's weapons programme, before they were thrown out in late 2002.

North Korea says it has completed reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods at Yongbyon in a process that can yield enough plutonium for half a dozen atomic bombs. North Korea is believed to already have one or two nuclear bombs.

North Korea's invitation of US experts could mean that the communist regime wants to prove that it is using plutonium to build bombs, and to increase its leverage at upcoming six-nation talks, said Ko Yoo-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongkuk University.

For weeks, North Korea has said it was boosting its nuclear weapons programme and was willing to demonstrate its nuclear capabilities in a "physical" manner.

It invited a US delegation led by Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the Armed Services Committee of the US House of Representatives, to visit Yongbyon in October, but the White House blocked the visit.

In its New Year's Day message, North Korea reconfirmed that it wants to resolve the dispute peacefully, through six-nation talks with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.

The American delegation due to visit Yongbyon will include US Senate policy aides.

US delegation will include Sig Hecker, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1985 to 1997. The delegation will also include a China expert from Stanford University and a former State Department official who has negotiated with North Korea.