Hill: NK nuke shutdown in 3 weeks

Story Highlights

• NEW: Hill said DPRK reaffirmed commitment to February agreement
• Hill's is highest-level U.S. visit to Pyongyang in more than four years
• South Korean envoy said six-party talks will resume early next month

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SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said North Korea could shut down its main nuclear facility within three weeks as inspectors arrive to monitor the dismantling of the Stalinist country's controversial weapons program.

In an interview with CNN, Hill said international inspectors will arrive next week to "show how to monitor" the activities, and then "within two weeks of that we can expect a shutdown of this facility." "When it does, it will be a good day." (Watch CNN interview with Hill )

Earlier Hill called his talks in North Korea "very useful and positive, saying that he was "buoyed by a sense" that a stuttering six-country process to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions will finally bear fruit.

Hill, who spent two days in Pyongyang meeting with North Korea's nuclear negotiator, said the country reaffirmed its commitment to the nuclear-disarmament agreement reached in February.

"The DPRK (North Korea) indicated that they are prepared promptly to shutdown the Yongbyon facility as called for in the February agreement," Hill said at a Friday afternoon news conference in Seoul.

The Yongbyon reactor -- the North's source for weapons-grade plutonium -- is central to the country's nuclear arms programme.

"They also said that they are prepared to disable the Yongbyon facility as called for in the February agreement, although we must work out the details of that, and some of what I did with them was to discuss some of the details of how that was to proceed," Hill added.

In his interview with CNN, Hill warned that there was still a "long process" ahead, but added that he believes North Korea will do what's needed to fully dismantle the facility.

"The actual disabling, where you break it and it can't be brought back online, we're talking about a few months to get that step done."

Chun Yung-woo, South Korea's chief negotiator, told reporters that the heads of the six delegations -- from the United States, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, Japan and China -- will meet early next month. He said the ministers of each -- including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- would then meet at an "appropriate time after that."

Hill is the most senior U.S. official to visit Pyongyang since 2002, when his predecessor, James Kelly, confronted the North Koreans with information that the United States had about its covert uranium-enrichment program. While Kelly's visit five years ago was followed by a chill in the talks, Hill's visit apparently was much warmer.

"The talks were very detailed, very substantive and I believe they were also very useful and positive," Hill said. "The DPRK, indeed both of us, reaffirmed our commitment to the February agreement and to the complete fulfillment of that February agreement."

"I come away from this two-day set of meetings buoyed by a sense that we are going to be able to achieve our full objectives, that is the complete de-nuclearization, but also burdened by the realization of the fact that we are going to have to spend a great deal of time, a great deal of effort, a lot of work in achieving these," Hill said.

The way for Hill's visit was paved by the transfer earlier this week of about $25 million from a bank in Macau, China, to a Russian bank where North Korea has an account. A delay in the transfer kept the disarmament process in limbo for several months.

The funds were frozen at the bank in late 2005 at the request of the United States, which claimed some of the money came from illegal activities. As part of a deal reached in February during six-party talks aimed at North Korea's de-nuclearization, the freeze was lifted.

North Korea reached a tentative agreement in February on a deal to begin to close down its nuclear program in exchange for $300 million in energy and financial aid. The framework for the agreement was laid out the previous September.

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