North Korea agreed Tuesday to accept half of the economic aid it has been promised for disabling its nuclear reactor in energy-related equipment and other items, a South Korean official said, according to AP. The agreement, reached at a working-group meeting of six countries involved in the nuclear talks, came as the chief U.S. nuclear envoy said a team of experts will go to North Korea this week to disable the North's reactor that produces plutonium for bombs. The U.S. envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, made the remarks after arriving in Beijing to meet his North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan. «Things are going ahead,» Hill said. «We have a lot to do before Dec. 31, and we thought it would be valuable to be in consultations as we begin the last two months of the year.» North Korea had been promised 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil for disabling the reactor and other facilities, which would mark the biggest step the communist nation has ever taken to scale back its nuclear weapons program. Pyongyang has promised to complete the disablement by year's end.
