N. Korea to let US experts visit nuclear site

A US delegation will visit North Korea next week to tour the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, which Washington believes may be a key part of Pyongyang's suspected nuclear weapons program, a South Korean official said yesterday.

The USA Today newspaper said the January 6-10 visit had been approved by the Bush administration and a top nuclear scientist would be in the delegation.

It would mark the first time outsiders have been allowed in the reclusive communist country's nuclear complex since UN inspectors were expelled a year ago in the midst of Pyongyang's confrontation with Washington over its nuclear ambitions.

A South Korean foreign ministry official, confirming the USA Today report, said Seoul was not a party to the visit and he was unsure what the delegation would do in Yongbyon or what specific facilities it would look at.

"I would not want to put too much meaning to the visit," he said. "It is difficult to use the visit as a gauge of the next round of six-party talks."

The Bush administration also is not involved in plans for the North Korea visit, according to a US official who said the group would include congressional staffers and a former top scientist at a US nuclear lab.

It was unclear, however, just what the group's composition was or what it would do in North Korea if the visit occurs.

Two staff members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee plan to leave today for North Korea and may visit the Yongbyon nuclear facility, a spokesman for the committee said yesterday.

The US official said Washington did not believe that the visit by the Senate staffers and by others would interfere with efforts to set up a fresh round of six-party talks including China, the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia on how to end Pyongyang's suspected atomic weapons programs.

"In our view, this does not impinge on or compete with our focus, which is on convening a new round of six-party talks and on achieving the goal of a denuclearized (Korean Peninsula)," the US official said.