BAN WELCOMES NUCLEAR AGREEMENT BETWEEN DPR KOREA AND UNITED STATES

BAN WELCOMES NUCLEAR AGREEMENT BETWEEN DPR KOREA AND UNITED STATES
New York, Oct 13 2008 2:10PM
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the agreement between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States on denuclearization verification measures, saying the accord will allow the Six-Party Talks progress and related activities to resume.

"This is another step towards a verifiable non-nuclear Korean peninsula," Mr. Ban's spokesperson <"http://www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp">said in a statement.

"The Secretary-General urges all the participants of the talks to redouble their efforts to meet their respective obligations and to complete the 'disablement phase' as soon as possible," the statement noted, referring to long-standing talks involving the DPRK, the Republic of Korea (ROK), China, Japan, Russia and the United States. "The Secretary-General remains fully supportive of this process."

The agreement between Pyongyang and Washington was reached just days after the DPRK cut off all access to United Nations inspectors to its nuclear reprocessing plant in Yongbyon, in line with an announcement to that effect on 24 September.

At the time the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said its inspectors would remain in Yongbyon pending further information from the DPRK.

Under an accord reached last year as part of the Six-Party Talks process, the DPRK had agreed to stop its disablement work and decommission Yongbyon.
Oct 13 2008 2:10PM
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