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 VIENNA, Austria (AP) - A United Nations team left for North Korea on Thursday to supervise the shutdown of the plutonium-producing nuclear reactor that is the key component of the reclusive communist nation's atomic weapons program.
The inspectors departed as a South Korean tanker headed to North Korea carrying a load of oil as the initial delivery of energy aid promised to the impoverished North under a six-nation deal aimed at dismantling its nuclear arsenal.
The arrival of U.N. experts will mark the first time in nearly five years that North Korea allows in a working team from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. The hard-line regime expelled IAEA monitors in late 2002, shutting its nuclear activities to outside view.
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