Special Report: The sixth round of six-party talks

    VIENNA, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on Tuesday referred the 35-nation governing board a report about the arrangement of IAEA for the verification to shut down and seal the nuclear establishments in Yongbyon, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

    The diplomats in Vienna told Xinhua that this report would firstly be referred to the 35 governing board nations, and the governing board would hold an extraordinary meeting to discuss and ratify the related arrangement on July 9.

    With the authorization of governing board, IAEA would deploy verification in Yongbyon according to the agreement with DPRK.

    The report said that the visit of IAEA's working level delegation, headed by Mr. Olli Heinonen, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Safeguards, in DPRK from June 26 to June 30 made concrete achievements

    The diplomats in Vienna believed that IAEA's arrangement for the verification in Yongbyon would be ratified in the extraordinary meeting.

    At the six-party talks in February, Pyongyang pledged to shut down the Yongbyon reactor with the ultimate goal of abandonment, and invite the inspectors of IAEA return to DPRK for verification in Yongbyon.

IAEA, DPRK reach consensus on nuke issue

    PYONGYANG, June 29 (Xinhua) -- A delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Friday concluded talks on Yongbyon nuclear facilities with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), reaching a consensus on the verification procedure of the reactor shutdown.

    "We have now moved to an understanding on how to do ratification and monitoring on Yongbyon facilities when they will be shutdown," Olli Heinonen, head of the delegation and IAEA deputy director general, told Xinhua.

IAEA delegation arrives in Pyongyang 

    PYONGYANG, June 26 (Xinhua) -- A working-level delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived here Tuesday to discuss the shutdown of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear facilities at Yongbyon.

    It is the UN watchdog's first visit to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) since late 2002, which came after U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill paid a productive visit to the country last Friday. Full story

U.S. official says DPRK could disable nuclear reactor by end of year

    WASHINGTON, June 25 (Xinhua) -- A senior U.S. official said here Monday that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear reactor could be disabled by the end of the year.

    "If all goes well, we would hope that by the end of the calendar year '07 we will have the (Yongbyon) facility shut down and disabled, we would have a peace process -- peace mechanism talks under way on the Korean Peninsula, chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said at a news briefing.  Full story

DPRK says frozen funds issue settled, to move on Feb. deal

    PYONGYANG, June 25 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Monday announced that the frozen fund dispute with the United States has been resolved, vowing it will start implementing the disarmament deal struck in February.

    "The frozen fund issue has been resolved as we hoped," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted a DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.  Full story