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IAEA head will not meet N.Korea nuclear envoy -spox

14 Mar 2007 05:16:43 GMT
Source: Reuters

BEIJING, March 14 (Reuters) - The chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog could not meet North Korea's top nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan, in Pyongyang on Wednesday and a meeting with the diplomat was "unlikely," a spokeswoman for the agency said.

Mohamed ElBaradei has been visiting North Korea to negotiate the return of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency as part of nascent nuclear disarmament deal reached in February.

He had been expected to meet Kim, but IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming, travelling with ElBaradei, said a meeting "looks unlikely".

"We were told he is busy working on the upcoming six-party talks," Fleming told Reuters by telephone from Pyongyang.

Those talks, bringing together North and South Korea, host China, the United States, Japan and Russia, reached a deal on Feb. 13 offering Pyongyang aid and security talks in return for shutting down the nuclear reactor at the heart of its atomic weapons programme.

The six-party talks are to resume in Beijing on Monday.

Instead, the IAEA officials met another North Korean vice foreign minister. They also met the head of North Korea's atomic energy agency, Ri Je-son, and were due to meet Kim Yong-dae, Vice President of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly, Fleming said.

She declined to comment on the course of talks in Pyongyang.

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Last updated:Wed Mar 14 05:18:20 2007