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North Korea begins disabling nuclear sites

SINGAPORE: North Korea has begun “disabling” its plutonium-based nuclear facilities, located at Yongbyon, under the guidance of a team of experts from the United States. This is a prelude to the eventual “dismantlement” of North Korea’s nuclear-weapons production facilities under a multilateral accord.

The “core” units now being “disabled” — a nuclear reactor, a reprocessing plant, and a fuel fabrication site — were already “shut down” during the preliminary stage of North Korea’s nuclear disarmament as agreed to by the U.S., China, the two Koreas, Japan, and Russia.

The commencement of “disablement” on Monday, under the terms of the relevant agreement among these six countries, has now been confirmed by the U.S. authorities. While the expectation is that this technical operation should be completed by the end of this year, there is no immediate estimate about the time it might take for the U.S. team, led by State Department’s Korea Desk chief Sung Kim, to complete its current job.

Under the six-party accord of February 13, as amplified later, North Korea should also “declare” all its various nuclear-arms programmes, including its suspected uranium-enrichment plants and processes.

No progress has so far been reported by the U.S. team in relation to this issue of “full and complete declaration” by North Korea.

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