BEIJING - The U.N.Â’s nuclear watchdog has clarified how to monitor the shutdown of North KoreaÂ’s nuclear facility and it is now up to Pyongyang and its five negotiating partners to decide on a date, an official said on Saturday.International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official Olli Heinonen said negotiations in North Korea had achieved an understanding on how to monitor the sealing and shutdown of the Yongbyon facility. But he stressed the timing of the long-negotiated shutdown needed consultation between North Korea and other countries in six-party talks to iron out the details.
‘The next logical step is that they talk with each other and agree on technical arrangements. The IAEA doesn’t have any role on that,’ Heinonen, IAEA Nuclear Safeguards Director told reporters in Beijing after several days of talks in Pyongyang. ‘I think that they will take the shutdown as soon as they agree with their partners about the timing,’ he added later.
North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China struck a deal on Feb. 13 under which Pyongyang would receive aid and security steps in return for moving to scrap its nuclear arms programmes. The IAEA, as the guardian of international nuclear safeguards, will monitor and verify the disarmament steps.