US official to attend NKorea nuke plant demolition

SEOUL, A senior US State Department official will attend North Korea's demolition on Friday of its nuclear cooling tower under an international disarmament deal, the US embassy said.

Sung Kim, director of Korean affairs at the department, would witness the blowing-up of the tower at the Yongbyon complex, a spokesman said Wedneday.

Yonhap news agency said the communist North is expected to hand over its long-awaited nuclear declaration Thursday through its embassy in Beijing.

The declaration is part of a six-nation nuclear disarmament pact. The North is set to topple the tower the next day in the presence of foreign TV crews as a symbol of its commitment to the process.

The embassy spokesman said Sung Kim, who has headed a US expert team supervising disablement work at Yongbyon, is now in Seoul and would cross the inter-Korean land border Thursday.

"I understand he will watch the blowing-up of the cooling tower at the North Korean nuclear site," the spokesman said.

AFP