International Atomic Energy Agency monitors said as they prepared to leave for North Korea on Thursday they were optimistic about their mission to verify a pledge by Pyongyang to shut down its atomic bomb programme.
"We are looking forward to success ... to complete our mission," Adel Tolba, chief of the 10-member strong IAEA team, told journalists at Vienna international airport ahead of departure. Tolba said he expected the team would see everything it needed to.
"We were there two weeks ago and it was a success," Tolba added, referring to his visit with Chief UN inspector Olli Heinonen at the end of June. It was the first time IAEA officials had returned to the country since Pyongyang expelled the agency's officials in December 2002 and walked out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty shortly afterwards.
North Korea seems poised to shut its antiquated Yongbyon reactor as part of a disarmament deal reached in February in exchange for fuel aid and security benefits. The deal also includes a process to remove trade sanctions and Pyongyang from a US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
"The team will implement arrangements agreed between the IAEA and (North Korea) ... to undertake verification and monitoring of the shutdown and sealing of (North Korea's) Yongbyon nuclear facilities," the UN nuclear watchdog agency said in a statement earlier on Thursday.
Following a stopover in Beijing, the team of nine men, one woman and one tonne of technical equipment is scheduled to fly to Pyongyang on Saturday and stay in North Korea for around two weeks.
In 2005, North Korea announced it had nuclear weapons. Last year, the secretive state test-detonated its first nuclear device, drawing widespread condemnation and UN financial and arms sanctions.
Also as part of the February deal, reached by the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, energy-starved North Korea will receive 50,000 tonnes of fuel oil supplied by the South. The first shipment is scheduled to arrive on Saturday.