Issue date: 11/2/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Associated Press Photo U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill, second left, arrives at the Incheon International Airport following his visit to Beijing, west of Seoul, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007. Hill said work on disabling North Korea's main nuclear complex will probably begin later this week, a development that would move the communist country one step closer to disarmament.

BEIJING (AP) - A team of U.S. experts landed in the North Korean capital on Thursday to start work on disabling the country's main nuclear complex. The process was expected to begin this week at a reactor that produces plutonium for bombs at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.

The nuclear experts arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday afternoon, broadcaster APTN said in a report from the North Korean capital. "It will be a combined effort, with North Korean help and our experts supervising and coordinating," team leader Sung Kim, director of the U.S. State Department's Office of Korea Affairs, told reporters before leaving Beijing. "Our main focus is to get there and start the process," he said. The nuclear teams include experts from the Department of Energy and State Department, and they will work in two- to three-week rotations, Kim said.

His arrival in North Korea comes after U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill held two days of talks in Beijing. Hill met with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan on the technical details of the disablement work. "We are very satisfied that we have an overall plan that will be effective and will provide the disablement that we need, with the understanding that disablement is not the last stage and I can't emphasize that enough," Hill told reporters Thursday. Under a February agreement, the North said it will abandon its nuclear ambitions in exchange for political concessions and the equivalent of 1 million tons of oil.

Pyongyang said it would disable the Yongbyon reactor, reprocessing plant and fuel fabrication plant and declare all of its atomic programs by the year's end. White House spokeswoman spokeswoman Dana Perino said the Bush administration was hopeful that the deal would eventually result in complete North Korean disarmament.

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