(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-01 19:34

PYONGYANG -- A working group of US experts arrived here Thursday for disablement work on the nuclear facilities of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) which could start early next week.

Sung Kim, director of the US State Department's Office of Korea Affairs, who led the 9-member team, told reporters at a hotel in downtown Beijing that the main focus of their trip is "to go there and get (disablement) started as soon as possible".

"As soon as we are set up in Yongbyon we will begin. Hopefully early next week," Kim said.

The team, comprising officials from the US Energy Department as well as scientists and technicians, is scheduled to stay in the DPRK for one or two weeks and then another team will replace them, according to Kim, who also voiced the hope of disablement being "accomplished before the end of this year".

"We had pretty good understanding to disable the three facilities in Yongbyon this year," Kim said.

Top envoys from the DPRK and the United States discussed on Wednesday on the disablement issue and how they would progress the way ahead till the end of the year.

The declaration process of the DPRK nuclear programs would begin within the next two weeks, US chief negotiator to the six-party talks Christopher Hill told reporters on Wednesday after the meeting.

The DPRK agreed to disable all existing nuclear facilities and to provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs by the end of this year, according to a joint document released on October 3 when the second phase of the sixth round of six-party talks ended in Beijing.

The document said the disabling of the five megawatt Experimental Reactor, the Reprocessing Plant (Radiochemical Laboratory) and the Nuclear Fuel Rod Fabrication Facility in Yongbyon would be completed by December 31.

Citing the disablement progress as "six parties' efforts", Kim called on relevant parties, namely the host China, the DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan and Russia, to work jointly pushing forward the process.

"China hopes to see that the second-phase actions set in an October document to be implemented comprehensively and with balance," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao at a routine news briefing on Thursday.

A two-day working-level talks involving China, the DPRK, the United States, the ROK, Russia and Japan ended on Tuesday at the truce village of Panmunjom.

Attendants mainly discussed next-stage assistance to the DPRK and achieved numerous consensus. China's Ambassador for Korean Peninsula Issue Chen Naiqing and other Chinese officials joined the meeting, according to Liu.

The working group is one of five established under the February deal. Others deal with the denuclearization of the DPRK, the establishment of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula and the normalization of Pyongyang's diplomatic ties with Washington and Tokyo.