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North Korea to start dismantling nuclear facilities

By DPA

Seoul : North Korea has said it would begin dismantling its nuclear facilities as early as this week, a negotiator for Seoul at the six-nation talks on the North-South Korean border said Monday.

Lim Sung Nam was quoted by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency as saying that North Korea promised to fulfil the second phase of its denuclearisation and expects the other participants to follow through on their promises to provide economic and energy aid to the impoverished country.

Lim made the comments as two days of talks on the promised aid got underway in Panmunjom with the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia participating.

The six nations signed an agreement in February in which Pyongyang agreed to dismantle its nuclear programme in return for assistance from the other participants as well as talks on normalizing ties with the US and Japan.

Lim said North Korea had compiled a specific list of the aid it wants and warned that numerous problems could crop up in the negotiations “primarily because we will be discussing extremely technical issues”.

At the beginning of October, North Korea promised to shut down its nuclear facilities and allow international inspections of them by the end of this year. It shut down its largest atomic complex at Yongbyon in mid-July and received oil shipments in return.