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SEOUL: North Korea's shutdown of its plutonium-producing reactor is a good start but persuading it to abandon all its nuclear ambitions will be difficult, the chief US negotiator said Monday.
"We took a long time to get these first steps and we have really a lot of work to do now, but I think we are off to a good start," said Christopher Hill, a day after the North announced it had shut its Yongbyon complex.
"It took a long time to get these first steps and it's a reminder of how difficult other steps will be," said the assistant secretary of state in a meeting with South Korea's Unification Minister Lee Jae-Joung.
US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, in an American TV interview, confirmed Sunday that the reactor -- the source of plutonium for nuclear weapons -- appeared to have been shut.
UN inspectors at the scene would be able to verify the closure in coming days, Hadley told Fox News.
He said the aim was "ultimately dismantling that programme, getting a full accounting of what they've been doing with any covert enrichment programme and finally getting them to turn over any nuclear materials from which nuclear weapons have or could be made."
The closure is the North's first step since 2002 towards ending its atomic programme, which culminated in an atomic bomb test last October, and the first phase of a six-nation disarmament deal reached in February.
A row over US sanctions on the North's bank accounts in Macau held up progress for months. The North finally agreed to move after it got its money back, and after South Korea delivered the first shipment of a total of 50,000 tons of fuel oil promised in compensation for the closure.
That shipment arrived Saturday along with International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and the North said the reactor shut down the same day.
Lee, whose portfolio is relations with the North, was quoted by Yonhap news agency as saying a second shipment of 7,500 tons was to leave later Monday.
Hill later met his South Korean counterpart Chun Yung-Woo to prepare for a new round of six-nation talks Wednesday in Beijing to discuss next steps. The forum groups South and North Korea, the United States, Japan, China and Russia.
"For once I think we can talk about next steps, not the last steps (in Beijing)," Hill told Lee. He will meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-Gwan Tuesday in Beijing.
Hill, who hopes for the permanent disablement of the North's nuclear programmes by year-end, said Washington was "certainly prepared to do everything we need to do to make it happen."
But he told reporters: "I certainly have to anticipate there will be problems because I never expected it would take until July to get this first step done."
The North's foreign ministry has said full implementation of the February accord depends "on what practical measures the US and Japan, in particular, will take to roll back their hostile policies."
The shutdown is the first time that Yongbyon has been closed as a political act since a previous disarmament deal collapsed in late 2002, but enough plutonium for several more bombs is thought to have been extracted since then.
The North will receive another 950,000 tons of fuel oil or equivalent aid, plus major diplomatic benefits and security guarantees, if it goes on to declare all nuclear programmes and permanently disable all nuclear facilities.
The US and its partners say "facilities" must include weapons and plutonium stockpiles and the North must account for an alleged covert highly enriched uranium programme.
Washington envisages diplomatic relations and a formal peace pact if it fulfils all commitments. – AFP/ac
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