NEW YORK (AFP) — The United States will be "heavily involved" on the ground in North Korea's nuclear disablement process under a six-nation disarmament deal, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Tuesday.
"There are some undertakings in this agreement which would involve, for example, the issue of various parties, namely the US, participating very heavily in the issue of actual disablement," Hill told reporters in New York when asked about an agreement reached in principle among the six parties in Beijing last week.
"So we will anticipate having people on the ground to participate in the disablement, for example," Hill said. "This is something that people had to look at carefully."
Hill was replying to a question on why the joint statement reached among the United States, China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia had been kept under close wraps for the envoys involved in the talks to return to their capitals to get government approvals.
Washington on Tuesday conveyed its approval to the agreement to China, which chairs the six-party talks.
The agreement required North Korea, which tested a nuclear bomb in October last year, to declare and disable its nuclear arsenal in return for energy aid and other benefits under the second phase of a February 13 disarmament deal among the six parties.
Hill said Beijing would make public the agreement once the other five governments also gave their nod to the deal.
The disablement process would get underway "in a matter of weeks" after the approval, he said.
Hill said the third and final phase would require North Korea to surrender all its fissile material and nuclear weapons, pointing out that "this is what we are worried about."
In July, North Korea shut down its only operating reactor at Yongbyon in return for fuel aid under the first phase of the deal.
The International Atomic Energy Agency in August confirmed the shutdown, along with the closure of a nuclear fuel fabrication plant, a reprocessing plant and a separate 50-megawatt reactor, only partly built, at Yongbyon.
Experts from the United States and two other nuclear weapons states Russia and China were in North Korea last month discussing the measures needed to disable the communist state's atomic weapons program. They made an extensive visit to the Yongbyon site.
The United States has no diplomatic relations with North Korea but Washington has agreed to restore ties with the nuclear rival once the disarmament deal is fully implemented.
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