North Korea has agreed to wide-ranging UN measures to verify a shutdown of its atom bomb programme, nuclear inspectors said on Tuesday, but doubts arose about when disarmament would begin. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency, said he would recommend its 35-nation governing board ratify a new inspector mission in North Korea based on a groundbreaking visit by an IAEA delegation last week.
But the IAEA has said North Korea and five powers dealing with the reclusive Stalinist state must settle on a target date for disabling its Yongbyon nuclear complex, source of its bomb-grade plutonium fuel, before inspectors are deployed. US officials in Washington said Pyongyang was now demanding promised shipments of oil before shutting down Yongbyon, raising the spectre of another delay in implementing a Feb. 13 disarmament accord.