A South Korean team has visited North Korea's main nuclear site during a trip to the communist state to discuss buying unused fuel rods as part of a nuclear deal, officials said Sunday.
The six-member delegation visited a storage place for the unused fuel rods and other facilities in Yongbyon on Friday, Seoul's presidential spokeswoman Kim Eun-Hye told a briefing.
The government team will stay in Pyongyang until Monday for more talks with North Korean officials, she said, adding the mission was going smoothly.
Seoul said last week the team, led by its deputy chief nuclear envoy Hwang Joon-Kook, would investigate the "technical and economic" aspects of buying the rods. The North has declared 14,000 unused rods from its plutonium-producing reactor.
The disposal of the North Korean nuclear fuel was part of a 2007 nuclear disarmament-for-aid deal agreed by six nations — the two Koreas, China, the United States, Russia and Japan.
South Korea has expressed interest in buying the unused fuel rods for its nuclear power plants.
As part of that agreement North Korea, which tested an atomic weapon in 2006, is disabling the plants at Yongbyon which made weapons-grade plutonium.
The negotiations suffered a setback last month when negotiators could not agree ways to verify the North's declaration of its past atomic activities.
Hwang, the chief delegate, is the most senior Seoul official to visit the North since relations soured after South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak took office last year and promised a firmer line.
The North has cut almost all official contacts with the South.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
