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SEOUL: UN inspectors return to North Korea this week for the first time in five years, but the reclusive state is likely to exact a higher price for its disarmament than first envisaged, analysts say.
The team from the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is due to arrive Tuesday in Pyongyang to hammer out the "modalities" of closing down the Yongbyon reactor at the core of the North's nuclear programmes.
The mission is in line with a February deal struck by negotiators from six nations under which Pyongyang promised to shut down the site in exchange for badly-needed energy aid and diplomatic concessions.
It also follows a landmark visit to Pyongyang on Thursday by chief US envoy Christopher Hill, the most senior US official to visit the communist North in nearly five years.
"This is only the start of a lengthy process. We will have to see what will come," said Takehiko Yamamoto, professor of international security at Waseda University in Tokyo, referring to the inspectors' visit.
Under the February deal, North Korea must "shut down and seal" the Yongbyon nuclear facility before eventually abandoning it, and invite the UN inspectors to monitory and verify the process.
Progress stalled for months due to hitches in returning North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank, although the assets have now been released.
But the cost of ensuring disarmament will be much higher than before, some analysts warn, given that Pyongyang has a proven nuclear capability following its first ever weapons test last October.
Suh Jae-Jin, from the Korea Institute for National Unification, said the North's demands are likely to include the provision of lightwater reactors to help ease its chronic power shortages.
An international consortium withdrew from plans to build two such reactors after the United States accused Pyongyang of cheating on an earlier accord by pursuing a secretive highly-enriched uranium programme.
The United States wants "complete denuclearisation," under which the North would declare all its programmes - including the uranium scheme that prompted a previous crisis in 2002, and which led to the expulsion of the last team of UN inspectors.
"The price tag for disarming the North will be much higher than 2002 as it has now nuclear bombs and plutonium," Paik Haksoon at the Sejong Institute in Seoul said.
Nevertheless, Paik said, by inviting Hill and the IAEA team, Pyongyang has sent "a strong signal that it is willing to keep its side of the nuclear deal as long as other parties will do likewise."
"It will move swiftly to the stage of 'shut down and seal' before starting procedures for disabling the Yongbyon facility," he went on, noting Pyongyang was promised up to 950,000 tonnes of fuel as an incentive.
The North has hailed Hill's visit as productive, and the envoy said that he believed the regime would shut down Yongbyon in a matter of weeks.
Experts agree his trip was significant. "Very important," said Jin Linbo, a researcher from the China Institute of International Studies.
"It shows the US hopes to make progress on the nuclear issue by cooperating with North Korea," he told AFP.
Under the February deal, Pyongyang also agreed to reveal a list of all its nuclear programmes, including plutonium extracted from used fuel rods.
All these measures are already needed under a September 2005 accord, under which North Korea committed itself to abandoning nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes.
Paik warned that all sides have a lot of "very time-consuming and complex work" to implement that process in full.
- AFP/yy
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