Vienna - North Korea allowed international inspectors back into its nuclear facilities Monday, two days after the United States struck the country from its terrorism blacklist, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said. In addition, the reclusive Stalinist state said it would resume disabling the Yongbyong nuclear complex on Tuesday by continuing to remove nuclear fuel from its reactor, the Vienna-based agency said in a document distributed to its member states.
The development came after the US State Department announced Saturday that North Korea had agreed to allow rigorous inspections of all its nuclear activities, with Washington responding by removing the Stalinist state from a list of sponsors of terrorism.
Earlier this month, Pyongyang had stopped IAEA inspectors from monitoring its plutonium reprocessing plant, prompting a stalemate after North Korea refused to agree to a mechanism for verifying the details of all of its nuclear activities until Washington removed the country from its state sponsors of terrorism list.
Last Thursday, the IAEA was banned from all nuclear facilities.
"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea today granted the Agency access to the 5 megawatt experimental nuclear power plant, the nuclear fuel fabrication plant and the reprocessing facility at Yongbyon," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.
Inspectors will also be able to reinstall seals and cameras in the plutonium reprocessing facility to ensure it remains shut down, IAEA members were informed.
IAEA experts are stationed permanently in Yongbyon to monitor the freeze of the complex that North Korea has agreed to in six-party talks with the US, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, in exchange for improved diplomatic and economic relations, including energy and humanitarian aid.
The nuclear agency had not been briefed yet on the nuclear verification measures agreed to by the US and North Korea, including a possible role of the IAEA in the process, Fleming said.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday welcomed North Korea's decision to accept the verification measures and called on its government to completely disable its plutonium processing facility.
The facility was used to produce plutonium for North Korea's nuclear explosion test in 2006.
