North Korea has said it will accept a plan to disable its nuclear facilities in a way that would make it difficult to restore them for a long time, a news report said Sunday. The North conveyed its acceptance of the plan to a U.S.-led team of experts who last week surveyed the isolated communist country's main nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Pyongyang, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said. It cited unidentified South Korean officials. North Korea has effectively agreed that U.S.-led nuclear experts will take charge of the process of disabling the North's nuclear facilities if specific plans for the disablement are fixed during the next six-nation talks on the North's nuclear programs, Yonhap reported. It said the North had expressed willingness to accept a plan under which it «would take a considerable period of time» to restore the facilities once they are disabled. South Korea's top nuclear envoy Chun Yung-woo said that he could not confirm Yonhap's report, and that the expert team's findings will be reported to delegates at the six-nation nuclear talks. Those talks bring together China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States. South Korean and U.S. officials have said the talks would resume in the next week, but host China has not made an official announcement.
