North Korea has invited a delegation of the United Nations nuclear watchdog to visit the country in what could be a first step toward implementing an international agreement intended to curb its nuclear programme.
North Korean news agency KCNA said the head of the communist country's atomic energy department had written to the International Atomic Energy Agency about discussions for verifying and monitoring "the suspension of the operations of nuclear facilities."
"A working-level delegation of the IAEA has been invited to visit," KCNA wrote in a report monitored in Singapore. The White House welcomed the announcement. An IAEA spokesman said the agency had not yet received the invitation. There had been broad hopes the release of North Korean money being held in Macau could lead to a shutting down North Korea's ageing nuclear reactor and the return of international inspectors to the country.
Pyongyang had agreed these actions in exchange for fuel oil aid under an agreement reached on February 13. "This is a good step," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said of the North Korean announcement.
"Now we can hopefully continue on the path set out in the agreed February 13 framework that will lead to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula," Stanzel said in Crawford, Texas, where US President George W. Bush is spending the weekend.