NORTH KOREA:South Korea will start shipping oil to North Korea next week, an official said yesterday, a day after UN nuclear inspectors said that the reclusive state had agreed to steps verifying a shutdown of its nuclear programme.
Under a disarmament-for-aid pact reached in six-country talks in February, impoverished North Korea pledged to start closing its Soviet-era Yongbyon reactor in exchange for 50,000 tonnes of heavy oil from its neighbour.
Implementation of the deal was held up for months because of an impasse over North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank. Pyongyang said that it had received the money.
"The first shipment will start next week and the initial amount will be between 5,000 and 10,000 tonnes," a South Korean Unification Ministry official said.
South Korea started massive food aid to North Korea at the weekend, citing progress in the nuclear talks as the reason for resuming aid suspended last year after the North test-fired a volley of ballistic missiles.
Pyongyang has won these concessions even though it missed a mid-April deadline to start shutting its reactor. US state department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that Pyongyang wanted some of the oil before starting to close Yongbyon, and Washington was not opposed to such a shipment.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Pyongyang had agreed to measures to verify a shutdown of the sprawling Yongbyon complex.