By DPA
Beijing/Kuala Lumpur : Officials from six nations resumed negotiations Wednesday on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programme as the UN's nuclear watchdog chief confirmed that all five nuclear facilities had been shut down at the Yongbyon complex.
Formal negotiations between delegation heads from North Korea, the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea began at Beijing's Diaoyutai State Guesthouse and were scheduled to continue into Thursday.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei told a press conference in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur Wednesday that the shutting down of the five nuclear facilities was a "positive step."
"Yes, we now verify that all five nuclear facilities have been shut down and that appropriate measures have been put in place, including sealing some of these facilities," ElBaradei said. The five facilities are believed to include the main reactor, a fuel rod plant, a laboratory and two partly built reactors.
ElBaradei urged Pyongyang to continue to be more transparent with the UN agency as it moved towards the next step of declaring inventory of all its nuclear material and facilities, which US officials have said include a covert uranium enrichment programme.
"The more transparency we get, the quicker we will be able to verify that everything in (North Korea) has been declared to us," he said.
"What we have done, in shutting down the facilities, is a very good, positive step, but it is the very first step in a long-drawn programme," said ElBaradei.
South Korean negotiator Chun Yung Woo said North Korea had "shown its willingness" to declare all nuclear programmes and disable its facilities "in five or six months, or even within the year", South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.
The North Korean offer had not been formalised at the six-party talks but was mentioned during a bilateral meeting between North Korea and South Korea Wednesday, Chun was quoted as saying.
Chun said North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said Pyongyang would "declare all its nuclear programmes without omitting anything."
ElBaradei said that the six-party talks were crucial in bringing forward the process of denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and the return of Pyongyang into the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
"North Korea committed themselves at the end of the road to join the NPT but I think that still is not in the cards in the near future.
"I think that would be something that comes as part of the outcome of the six-party talks," said ElBaradei.
US negotiator Christopher Hill said he expected a "work plan" for dismantlement of the programme to emerge from this week's talks.
"I laid out my view on how this could be done and I think we had a good discussion on that basis," Yonhap quoted Hill as saying after bilateral talks with Kim Tuesday.