North Korea Closes Reactor, ; Allows Inspectors to Return

North Korea told the United States on Saturday that it had shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and readmitted a permanent international inspection team.

The action completes its first step toward reversing a four-year confrontation with the United States during which North Korea has made fuel for a small but potent arsenal of nuclear weapons.

North Korea sent the announcement through the country’s small mission to the United Nations at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, according to Christopher R. Hill, the U.S. assistant secretary of state who negotiated the accord to close the reactor that was agreed to in February. The reactor shutdown comes nine months after North Korea conducted a nuclear test, but it is unclear whether the country has mastered the ability to deliver or sell a working nuclear weapon.

The North Korean claim, which was carefully synchronized with the arrival of a first shipment of fuel oil from South Korea, can be easily verified by the 10-member inspection team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, though communications are slow from that location.

The next critical steps required under the accord, Hill has said, could take until the end of the year.

North Korea, in return for large shipments of additional fuel oil, is to permanently disable the reactor so it can no longer produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, and, perhaps even before that, issue a complete declaration of all its nuclear assets.

Though critical and long-awaited, the shutdown may also be the easiest achievement. Far more difficult, according to experts and former negotiators with North Korea, will be convincing the country to disgorge what the CIA estimates is enough plutonium fuel for eight or more weapons.

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