Top US Expert on Korea to Attend Demolition of Tower at North Korean Nuclear Plant
By VOA News
25 June 2008
The U.S. State Department's top Korean expert will travel to North Korea for this week's planned destruction of the cooling tower at the regime's main Yongbyon nuclear complex.
A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in South Korea says Sung Kim will cross the inter-Korean border on Thursday.
The isolated regime has invited media organizations from the other countries in the disarmament talks - the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea - to provide live television coverage of the tower's destruction.
Pyongyang is expected to hand over its long-awaited nuclear declaration on Thursday to Chinese negotiators - six months after it had agreed to do so, in exchange for diplomatic benefits and energy aid.
After it hands over its declaration, the United States is expected to begin the process of dropping North Korea from a terrorism blacklist.
Christopher Hill, the chief American envoy to the talks, says the declaration will outline North Korea's nuclear programs, but will not provide details about its nuclear weapons.
The envoy says the accounting of the regime's nuclear weapons will be determined in the next phase of talks. He says that phase will begin as the United States works to verify the declaration.
Hill is scheduled to travel Wednesday to Japan, where he will join U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.
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