North Korea agree nuclear ban

North Korea has promised to disable its main nuclear weapons plants by the end of the year.

A team of experts from the US will arrive within two weeks to oversee the operation, under a six-nation disarmament agreement released today.

The deal came after talks in China which also involved the US, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia.

The announcement came as the leaders of North and South Korea met for a historic summit in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

As part of the agreement North Korea will provide a complete list of its nuclear programs and disable its facilities at its main reactor complex by New Year’s Eve, said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei.

“The US will lead disablement activities and provide the initial funding for those activities,” said Wu.

“As a first step, the US side will lead the expert group to” North Korea within the next two weeks.

The agreement, reached on Sunday but not given final approval by all six governments until today, marks a significant step forward for a disarmament process that if successful could ultimately rid North Korea of nuclear weapons.

President Bush welcomed the deal. “These second-phase actions effectively end the DPRK’s production of plutonium – a major step towards the goal of achieving the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” said a White House spokesman.

Under the agreement North Korea agreed to disable its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon, which is believed to have produced enough plutonium for perhaps more than a dozen bombs – including the device detonated a year ago to prove its long-suspected nuclear capability.

Facilities to be dismantled include a five-megawatt experimental reactor, a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant and a nuclear fuel rod fabrication facility.

The deal is a follow-up to a broad agreement reached in February under which North Korea agreed to scrap its nuclear programs in return for a million tons of heavy fuel oil or other energy and economic assistance.

America wants a guarantee that nuclear plants will be unable to be returned to operation within 12 months.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, Washington’s top nuclear negotiator, said yesterday that North Korea has about 50 kilograms of bomb-making material harvested from the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and that it will have to declare exactly how much.

While the Yongbyon program centres around plutonium, the US also wants an accounting of a uranium enrichment program, Hill said.

“We have to get denuclearization – complete, full denuclearization,” Hill said at a news conference in New York. “Partial success is not success.”

Under Wednesday’s deal, the US and North Korea will “increase bilateral exchanges and enhance mutual trust” but did not set a specific timetable for when Washington will remove Pyongyang from a list of countries that sponsor terrorism – a key North Korean