Washington To Examine North Korean Documents On Yongbyon Nuclear Reactor

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The top U.S. expert on Korea will be returning to Washington from North Korea this week with documents about the socialist nation's Yongbyon nuclear reactor.

Sung Kim, Director of the State Department's Office of Korean Affairs, left South Korea on Monday with 18,000 pages of documents provided by Pyongyang, according to the IHT. The documents consists of records dating back to 1986 about the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the five-megawatt reactor and fuel reprocessing plant where North Korea produced its plutonium, the State Department said in a release over the weekend. The Yongbyon reactor was shut down in July 2007 as part of an agreement - called the Six-Party Talks - between North Korea, China, Japan, the Russian Federation, South Korea and the U.S. for denuclearization.

Kim's visit follows a December 31 deadline missed by North Korea to give a list of its nuclear activities in exchange for a an end to economic sanctions.