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First stage of monitoring in North Korea completed - IAEAE
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 01 - 08 - 2007


Experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) monitoring the shutdown of nuclear facilities in North Korea
said Wednesday the mission was on time after initial delays due to
radioactive contamination, according to dpa.
"We completed this step of our mission. This kind of monitoring
and verification issues is of a continuous nature. We were already
able to fulfil our planned activities and we are going to
headquarters to evaluate and assess what we did," IAEA team leader
Adel Tolba told journalists after arriving at Vienna airport.
Tolba added that verification and monitoring activities would be
ongoing, and the results would be presented to the IAEA Board.
Reacting to news reports about radioactive contamination found by
his team at the Yongbyon nuclear site, Tolba confirmed initial
contamination levels slightly above average, but added this was a
normal occurrence, "not unexpected" by the IAEA experts.
"This is a contamination which you can find in any nuclear
facility. But that degree of contamination was a little bit higher
than normally. It is not like we find something unexpected. This is
normal contamination which we work with ... in nuclear facilities
everywhere."
The contamination had since then been cleared and while it
originally delayed the team's work, they were now back on schedule.
"We are in time," Tolba said.
The IAEA team praised Pyongyang's cooperation in their efforts:
"Cooperation was very satisfactory," Tolba said. "We were able to
conduct all our work because of that cooperation"
The team had been in North Korea since July 14, verifying that
North Korea shut down all five nuclear facilities at the Yongbyon
nuclear complex. On Monday the original monitors were replaced by a
second IAEA team.
In February, North Korea agreed to mothball its nuclear weapons
programme in exchange for far-reaching economic and energy aid. The
shutdown of the Yongbyon reactor and the other facilities was
however held up by North Korean demands to unfreeze assets believed
by the US to originate from counterfeiting and money laundering
activities, that were held at a bank on Macao.
In the latest round of the six-party talks held in July, the
participating countries Russia, China, Japan, the United States and
the two Koreas agreed that further talks will be held in September.
Despite the lack of a fixed timetable, they are still upbeat that
progress will be possible.


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