First IAEA inspection team leaves DPRK

The head of the IAEA group, Adel Tolba (L) speaks to the media as he arrives at Beijing's airport from North Korea, July 31, 2007. REUTERS/Jason Lee


First IAEA inspection team leaves DPRK

The first team of UN inspectors left here for Beijing Tuesday after wrapping up a two-week inspection of the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
"We just completed the job which was planned and we have had full cooperation with the DPRK authorities," Adel Tolba, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s inspection team, told Xinhua at the airport.
As for the installation of monitoring equipment at Yongbyon nuclear facilities, he said the "evaluation and the assessment" of that equipment will be done at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna.
The first inspection team arrived in Pyongyang on July 14 and then went to Yongbyon to verify and monitor the shutdown of the nuclear facilities there.
On July 18, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said the DPRK had shut down all of its five nuclear facilities.
Following the first team, the second IAEA team arrived in the DPRK Saturday and now is at Yongbyon for another two weeks of inspection work.

Source: Xinhua



Nuclear inspectors say North Korea cooperating
Reuters

BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea has been cooperating fully with nuclear inspectors monitoring the shutdown of its key atomic complex, the U.N. team said on Tuesday.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) staff arrived in North Korea on July 14 to monitor the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which the North closed as part of a disarmament pact reached in six-country talks in February.
"In doing our actions we had complete cooperation from the DPRK authorities," the head of the IAEA group, Adel Tolba, told reporters at Beijing airport after arriving from Pyongyang, capital of North Korea, or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Tolba would not comment on the state of the North's nuclear facilities; such weighty issues are left to agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who is likely to issue a report on the shutdown in September.
But Tolba gave no sign of any problems.
"We think that what we need to perform was performed," he said. "We did perform all the mandated activities."
He said the team was heading back to its Vienna headquarters where an assessment would take place.
The 10 returning nuclear monitors are part of a "tag-team" who will watch over Yongbyon while six-party talks seek agreement on advancing the initial disarmament steps. A replacement team of six IAEA personnel arrived in North Korea over the weekend.
A reactor and uranium fuel processing plant at Yongbyon can produce the plutonium that North Korea used in its first nuclear test-blast in October last year.
North Korea halted the antiquated complex earlier this month after it began receiving heavy fuel shipments it was offered in return in the February deal.
The North also invited back IAEA personnel. They were thrown out of the country in late 2002 after a 1994 disarmament deal collapsed.
The next step of the disarmament deal, hammered out between North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, calls on Pyongyang to "disable" its nuclear facilities and provide a full accounting of its nuclear weapons programs.
Talks between the countries this month failed to produce a deadline for those steps.
They are to hold several sets of working-level talks in August and more senior meetings in September that could clear the way for implementation.
©Reuters 2007