North Korea has not stopped moving to restart its nuclear-weapons program, the U.S. State Department said Friday despite sending its top envoy to the country to rescue an unraveling nuclear-disarmament agreement. Based on information received as late as Thursday, “North Koreans continue to take some steps to reverse disablement in some of the Yongbyon facilities,” said department deputy spokesman Robert Wood. “In essence, the only details I can give you on that is some of the equipment that was moved to storage, we are now seeing put back in place,” Wood told reporters. Pyongyang's actions showed that North Korea was continuing moves to resume plutonium reprocessing at the key Yongbyon nuclear reactor complex even as U.S. envoy Christopher Hill was in Pyongyang this week trying to revive six-country diplomatic efforts to end North Korea's nuclear-weapons program. Hill departed Pyongyang on Friday for Seoul, where he briefed his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in the six-country talks. He told reporters in Seoul he had “very substantive” talks during his visit to North Korea but gave no further details.
