N.Korea restarts work at nuke complex

SOUTH KOREA: Senior US and South Korean officials will meet in Beijing Friday to discuss North Korea’s apparent moves to restart its plutonium-producing nuclear reactor, officials said.

South Korea’s foreign ministry, which overnight expressed “serious concern,” said its nuclear envoy Kim Sook would leave for talks with his US counterpart Christopher Hill and Chinese officials.

The communist North announced last week it had stopped work to disable the Yongbyon nuclear complex, and would consider rebuilding it, because Washington had failed to drop it from a terrorism blacklist.

A six-nation denuclearisation deal is deadlocked because the North refuses to accept US demands for strict inspection of its atomic material including sampling.

A senior Seoul foreign ministry official told reporters that the North on Tuesday informed US personnel at Yongbyon that it has decided to start restoring the plants.

“It has been confirmed that equipment which had been disassembled and stored in a warehouse during the disabling work is being taken back to sites at Yongbyon,” the official said on condition of anonymity and without giving details.

Seoul,Thursday, AFP