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North Korea agrees to disarmament | |
(10 minutes later) | |
North Korea has agreed to take the first steps towards nuclear disarmament as part of a deal reached during lengthy talks in Beijing. | |
Chinese envoy Wu Dawei said Pyongyang had agreed to shut down its main nuclear reactor in return for fuel aid. | |
The US and Japan have also agreed to begin talks with North Korea on building closer ties, he said. | |
The six-party talks carried on late into Monday night, to try and hammer out the final details of the deal. | |
Delegates from the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia have been meeting in Beijing since Thursday. | |
'Important concensus' | |
Mr Wu said an important consensus had been reached at the end of the negotiations. | |
He said Pyongyang had agreed to close its Yongbyon reactor within 60 days, in return for 50,000 metric tons of fuel aid or economic aid of equal value. | |
N KOREA NUCLEAR PROGRAMME Believed to have 'handful' of nuclear weaponsBut not thought to have any small enough to put in a missileCould try dropping from plane, though world watching closely Text of September 2005 deal | |
The North will eventually receive another one million tonnes of fuel oil or an equivalent when it permanently disables its nuclear operations, he said. | |
Mr Wu said the US had agreed to begin the process of removing North Korea from its list of terror states and establish diplomatic relations. | |
Japan would also discuss normalising relations with the North. | |
Before the deal had even been signed, some officials in Washington were voicing scepticism. | |
North Korea made a similar deal in the 1990s, which fell apart when it became known that Pyongyang was continuing to pursue a nuclear programme. |