US team to visit North Korea nuclear plant

North Korea has agreed to allow a US delegation to visit its main nuclear complex next week, a South Korean official said today.

The trip will mark the first time outsiders have been allowed to inspect North Korea’s main nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, since the communist country expelled UN nuclear monitors in late 2002.

The trip is scheduled for January 6-10, according to US newspaper USA Today. The newspaper said the US delegation would include Sig Hecker, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1985 to 1997.

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

USA Today said the delegation would also include a China expert from Stanford University, two Senate foreign policy aides who have previously visited Pyongyang and a former State Department official who has negotiated with North Korea.

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.

North Korea is believed to be running a nuclear weapons programme at Yongbyon.

The nuclear standoff flared in October 2002 when US officials said Pyongyang admitted having a secret nuclear programme in violation of a 1994 pact.

North Korea has demanded that the United States provide it with economic aid and security assurances in return for dismantling its nuclear weapons programme. Washington wants Pyongyang to abandon its programme first.