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China calls on North Korea to allow IAEA monitoring

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China has called on North Korea to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to monitor the country's nuclear facilities, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on Tuesday.

China has called on North Korea to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to monitor the country's nuclear facilities, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on Tuesday.

"North Korea has the right to peaceful use of nuclear technology, at the same time these activities should be controlled by the IAEA," Jiang Yu said, adding that only through dialogue the Korean problem can be solved.

On Monday CNN reported that North Korea had agreed to allow IAEA inspections, following talks with visiting New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a former U.S. Energy Minister and expert on the North Korean nuclear program.

"The North agreed to allow International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] personnel to return to a nuclear facility in the country and agreed to negotiate the sale of 12,000 fresh fuel rods and ship them to an outside country, presumably to South Korea," CNN's website quoted its reporter Wolf Blitzer as saying.

"The fuel rods would be enough to make about six to eight nuclear weapons," CNN said.

In late November, Pyongyang disclosed to visiting U.S. experts an operational uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon, prompting fears that the secretive state had again begun developing nuclear weapons.

North Korea has been subjected to several rounds of UN Security Council sanctions since it declared itself a nuclear power in 2005. The state broke off talks with South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia over its nuclear program last April.

BEIJING, December 21 (RIA Novosti)

 

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