UN nuclear inspectors say North Korea is cooperating

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BEIJING, July 31 (AFP): North Korea has cooperated fully with UN inspectors after shutting down its main nuclear reactor site, the head of the monitoring team said Tuesday after their first two-week mission ended.
"I should say that in doing our activities we had complete cooperation from DPRK (North Korean) authorities," Adel Tolba, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspection team, told reporters after arriving in Beijing.
"And because of that we think that what we needed to perform was performed."
Tolba said his team had inspected the closure of North Korea's main plutonium-producing nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, which was shut down on July 14 in the first step of a landmark disarmament accord.
Tolba's team arrived on the same day, beginning the first United Nations monitoring mission of North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes since IAEA inspectors were kicked out of the country in 2002.
The closure of Yongbyon and return of IAEA inspectors were the first steps in the February six-nation accord under which North Korea agreed to eventually scrap all its nuclear programmes in exchange for aid, diplomatic concessions and security guarantees.
During their two weeks there, the inspectors also monitored four other nuclear facilities near Yongbyon that were shut down.
Tolba declined to say anything more about the mission, other than that all five facilities were inspected and that the IAEA headquarters in Vienna would give a fuller account of the team's activities.