N. Korea Signs Nuclear Pact on Inspections

VIENNA â€”  After years of stalling, North Korea signed a nuclear safeguards agreement Thursday, opening the way for international inspection of its hidden nuclear facilities.

But North Korean officials were vague about when inspections could start, aggravating South Korea’s fears that the Pyongyang government still is trying to buy time to finish an atomic bomb.

“We will fully and loyally fulfill this agreement,� said Hong Gun Pyo, vice minister of North Korea’s Atomic Energy Industry, who signed the accord with Hans Blix, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The accord must be ratified by North Korea’s Parliament.

South Korea praised the signing but urged quick ratification by its Communist neighbor.

“We expect the north to take, without delay, steps to bring the agreement into force and to submit all its nuclear materials and facilities to IAEA inspection as expeditiously as possible,� said a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry in Seoul.

North Korea signed the IAEA’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1985. The treaty requires all signatories to negotiate and sign a further safeguards pact to open their plants to inspection.

But Pyongyang balked at signing the inspection pact for years, saying that it felt threatened by U.S. nuclear arms in South Korea.

On New Year’s Eve, both Koreas signed an outline agreement banning nuclear weapons from the peninsula--a few weeks after signing a nonaggression and reconciliation accord.

Both the nuclear and nonaggression pacts are planned to take effect when both countries’ prime ministers meet for a sixth round of talks in Pyongyang next month.