North Korea nuclear seals removed
The UN's atomic watchdog reported that it has removed seals and surveillance cameras from North Korea's main nuclear complex at Pyongyang's request
North Korea says the move is part of a plan to reactivate the
Yongbyon plant, and that it plans to return nuclear material to the site next week.
The move comes amid a dispute over an international disarmament-for-aid deal.
A similar step in 2002 sparked a crisis which eventually resulted in Pyongyang testing a
nuclear weapon in 2006.
The removal of seals and cameras "was completed today" at the site, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.
IAEA inspectors will have no further access to the reprocessing plant, she added. Pyongyang began dismantling the reactor, which can be used to make weapons-grade plutonium, last November.
However, on Friday it announced that it was working to reactivate it.
North Korea was expecting to be removed from the US terror list after submitting a long-delayed account of its nuclear facilities to the international talks in June, in accordance with the disarmament deal it signed in 2007.
It also blew up the main cooling tower at
Yongbyon in a symbolic gesture of its commitment to the process.
However, the US said it would not remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism until procedures by which the North's disarmament would be verified were established.
The North has been locked in discussions for years over its nuclear ambitions with five other nations - South Korea, the US, China, Russia and Japan.
North and South Korea have been technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended without a peace treaty.
Experts say the
Yongbyon plant could take up to a year to bring back into commission, so there will be no new plutonium production for a while.
However, there is plenty already available in the form of the spent fuel rods, taken from the reactor core, but only removed to a water-cooled tank on the site, says the
BBC's John
Sudworth in Seoul.
It is this nuclear material that will now be introduced into the separate plutonium reprocessing plant, according to the information given to the IAEA.
Some estimates suggest the fuel rods could yield about 6kg (13lbs) of highly enriched uranium within two to three months - enough for one atomic bomb to add to North Korea's existing stockpile.