North Korea nuclear disabling 'going smoothly'

BEIJING - A team of experts in North Korea to oversee the disabling of its atomic facilities said on Thursday they were satisfied with progress as the reclusive country prepares to host the U.S. envoy to nuclear talks.

The team visited the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which North Korea pledged to dismantle by the end of the year in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives from the five other countries involved in nuclear negotiations.

"We are satisfied with the process of disablement there (at Yongbyon), and the denuclearization process is going on smoothly," China's Xinhua news agency quoted Chen Naiqing, who was heading the team, as saying.

A South Korean member echoed the view.

"The DPRK's attitude to the disablement process is positive," Xinhua quoted Im Seong-nam as saying. The DPRK, or Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is the North's official name.

U.S. Assistance Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who is Washington's chief envoy at the talks that also group the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and host China, is to visit Pyongyang next week in a rare trip for a U.S. official.

Hill, who also said on Wednesday there had been some progress at Yongbyon, will meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan and also travel to Yongbyon.

Relations between the United States and North Korea, which U.S. President George W. Bush once branded part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and pre-war Iraq, have warmed considerably since North Korea agreed in February to freeze and then roll back its nuclear arms production programme.

In return, the impoverished country will receive a huge injection of fuel aid. It is also hoping that Washington will see through its pledge to remove North Korea from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.