Agence France-Presse,
BEIJING: The shutdown of North Korea's main nuclear reactor could be just “a matter of weeks” away, the chief US envoy to multilateral disarmament talks said here Monday.
“Our sense is that we will be down to a matter of weeks,” Christopher Hill told reporters in Beijing.
South Korea said earlier Monday it expected North Korea to start shutting its Yongbyon reactor in two to three weeks.
The US and South Korean remarks came after a weekend announcement by the communist state that raised hopes of a breakthrough in the protracted nuclear disarmament deal.
The North said Saturday it had invited the UN nuclear watchdog to discuss the shutdown of Yongbyon, now that a banking dispute with the United States which had blocked a February disarmament pact was almost over.
