UN nuclear agency ‘ready to return’ to North Korea
"The agency has an essential role to play in verifying (North Korea's) nuclear programme," Director General Yukiya Amano of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement.
"Pending further details, we stand ready to return to Yongbyon to undertake monitoring activities upon request and with the agreement of the agency's Board of Governors."
The Vienna-based agency's 35-nation governing board is due to meet next week for a regular quarterly meeting.
IAEA inspectors were expelled from North Korea in 2009.
Today's announcement, made simultaneously by the US State Department and North Korea's official news agency, paves the way for the possible resumption of six-party disarmament negotiations with Pyongyang and follows talks between US and North Korean diplomats in Beijing last week.
The IAEA is believed to have a team of inspectors who are specialised on North Korea and prepared to go there at short notice. Dozens of its inspectors have past experience of working in the Asian state.
Allowing IAEA staff to travel to North Korea may help address international concerns about Pyongyang's atomic aims, but analysts have in the past voiced doubt the North would grant the UN. agency full access to nuclear facilities.
The Yongbyon complex is at the heart of North Korea's plutonium weapons programme. It includes a reprocessing plant where weapons-grade material is extracted from spent fuel rods.
In late 2010, foreign experts said North Korean officials had shown them what they said was a uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon, potentially offering a second path to make bombs.
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