The European Union, Japan, the United States and other world powers Wednesday urged North Korea to swiftly dismantle its nuclear weapons programme, in statements at a meeting of the UN atomic watchdog.
"The European Union underlines the importance of a swift and full implementation of commitments ... leading to the dismantlement of the nuclear weapons programme of (North Korea) in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner," German ambassador Peter Gottwald told the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Gottwald, speaking for Germany as current EU president, said he welcomed the prospect of IAEA inspectors returning to North Korea, after having been kicked out in December 2002.
"After more than four years during which the agency was not able to monitor the DPRK's (North Korea's) programmes, the European Union looks forward to seeing the agency being able to resume its work in a fast, transparent, comprehensive and substantial manner," Gottwald said, according to a print-out of his speech.
Diplomats said statements by other key nations including Japan, China, South Korea and the United States, were along the same lines as the EU presentation. They said Japan had referred to the North Korean nuclear test last October as a threat to the treaty banning nuclear weapons testing.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei reported to the board Wednesday on his planned trip next week to North Korea to discuss the return of IAEA inspectors to the communist country in the wake of Pyongyang's agreement to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
ElBaradei will report to the IAEA after his return, with a special board meeting expected in Vienna possibly on March 21 as board approval is needed to authorise inspections and review how they are to be funded, a diplomat said.
ElBaradei had in February said the nuclear situation in North Korea has been "going from bad to worse in the last five to 10 years" and that now is a chance "to reverse course and to hopefully work ... towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula."
He said he would discuss with the North Koreans how to dismantle the Yongbyon plutonium-producing reactor, the first step of a plan agreed February 13 by six nations, including North Korea, for the communist state to end its nuclear weapons programme.
The Yongbyon reactor is to be shut down and sealed by the IAEA "for the purpose of eventual abandonment" within 60 days of February 13, which would be April 13, according to the agreement, although diplomats said an exact timetable is not yet clear.
North Korea is to receive 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil in return for shutting down the reactor. "The plan is for Dr ElBaradei to arrive in Beijing on March 12 and leave for North Korea on the 13th for a two-day visit," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said last week.
ElBaradei said a key goal of his trip would be to normalise relations between North Korea and the IAEA. Pyongyang had kicked out the agency's inspectors in December 2002 before withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in January 2003.