NKorea prepared to shut nuclear reactor: US envoy

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US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill (L) and his South Korean counterpart Chun Yung-Woo give a joint press conference at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul.

SEOUL, June 22 (AFP): US envoy Christopher Hill said Friday he has "useful and positive" talks on a rare visit to North Korea and the regime was prepared to shut down the reactor at the heart of its nuclear programme.
Speaking after he returned to Seoul, Hill-the most senior US official to visit the communist state in nearly five years-said they had agreed on the need swiftly to implement a February agreement on disarmament.
"Indeed the DPRK (North Korea) indicated they are prepared to promptly shut down the Yongbyon facility as called for by the February agreement," he said.
"They also said they are prepared to disable the Yongbyon facility," Hill added, saying the talks had been "very useful and positive."
During his two-day visit, Hill met with North Korea's Foreign Minister Pak Ui-Chun and Kim Kye-Gwan, its chief envoy to the six-nation forum that drew up the February 13 accord.
Under that agreement, hammered out after a surge in tensions following the North's first nuclear weapons test last year, Pyongyang promised to shut down the Yongbyon plant in return for energy aid and diplomatic concessions.
"Both of us reaffirmed our commitment to the February agreement and to the complete fulfillment of that February agreement," Hill said.
"We discussed all elements of the February agreement and we also had a look ahead to what we have to do in the future to keep the process going and to really restore the sense of momentum and dynamism that will take us to the end game, which is a complete denuclearisation."
He said both sides wanted an early meeting of nuclear negotiators-early July is seen as a possibility-followed by ministerial-level talks grouping the six sides-the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
Hill said he had returned from the North "buoyed by the sense that we are going to be able to achieve our objectives but also burdened by realization of the fact that we are going to have to spend a great deal of time, a great of effort, a lot of work, in achieving these."
His visit came ahead of the scheduled arrival next week of inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog-the first time they will have been back since being kicked out in late 2002 -- to discuss how to shut down Yongbyon.