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WASHINGTON : The United States said Monday that it preferred six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programme to resume after the reclusive state shut down its key atomic reactor under UN supervision.
"I think ideally what everybody would like to see is an envoys' level meeting build on some already increased momentum," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, citing proposals for talks "in the next week or two."
Such momentum would stem from "a shutdown and sealing of the Yongbyon (reactor), having the IAEA in there and full strength, performing their full mission that they have set out for," he told reporters.
A nine-member inspector team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN atomic watchdog, is expected to travel to North Korea within the next "week or two", its chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in Vienna Monday.
The mission will re-establish international monitoring nearly five years after the agency was kicked out in December 2002 when Pyongyang moved to re-start its Yongbyon plutonium-producing nuclear reactor and resume weapons work.
North Korea conducted its first nuclear weapons test in October last year. It is believed to have several plutonium bombs.
It said Friday it was considering shutting down Yongbyon as soon as its received its first shipment of heavy fuel as part of a nuclear disarmament pact reached at the six-party talks among the United States, China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia in February.
The accord is a first step towards Pyongyang giving up its nuclear weapons.
South Korea has promised to send the first shipment of a total of 50,000 tonnes of fuel oil on Thursday.
- AFP/ir
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