UN inspectors headed to North Korea's key nuclear reactor Thursday -- their first visit since they were expelled five years ago -- to discuss a long-delayed shutdown of the facility.
The International Atomic Energy Agency team traveled from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang to the Yongbyon reactor, about 60 miles to the northeast.
"We go to see the facilities and continue our discussions in more details," IAEA Deputy Director Olli Heinonen said, in footage broadcast by APTN, before he departed for the Yongbyon complex.
The 5-megawatt reactor, believed capable of churning out enough plutonium for one atomic bomb per year, is at the center of international efforts to halt North Korea's nuclear program.
The team was invited by North Korea to discuss details of shutting down the reactor, as it pledged under an international accord in February. It is the first IAEA trip to the facility since its monitors were expelled from the country in late 2002.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Washington that with UN inspectors now in North Korea she hoped for a swift shutdown of the country's nuclear weapons programs.
"We hope for now rapid progress given the beginning, we believe, of the North Korean efforts to meet their initial action obligations," Rice said before meeting South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon at the State Department.
Heinonen, whose team arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday, declined to provide details of his discussions so far with North Korean officials and said the visit to Yongbyon, expected to last into Friday, was not a formal inspection.
"We are here to talk about the verification and monitoring arrangements," Heinonen said.
Asked if North Korea might begin to shut down the reactor during his visit, Heinonen told reporters that he and his team will see "what we have on the table" by Friday evening.
Plans for a formal inspection of the facility would need approval by the IAEA's board of governors in Vienna.
North Korea agreed in February to close the reactor in exchange for economic aid and political concessions, under an accord reached in six-party talks also including the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
But the communist nation ignored an April deadline to do so because of a banking dispute with the United States.
That dispute was settled this week after months of delay and North Korea announced Monday that it would move forward with the disarmament deal. That followed a surprise visit last week to North Korea by Christopher Hill, the top U.S. negotiator in the six-party talks.
The accord's initial phase calls for North Korea to shut the Yongbyon reactor and receive 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.
South Korea's Unification Ministry said Thursday it had agreed with North Korea to discuss details of the oil aid -- such as how much should be shipped to which ports -- in talks on Friday and Saturday at the North Korean border city of Kaesong.
Meanwhile, North Korea test-fired three surface-to-surface missiles that landed in the North's territorial waters, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency and U.S. Defense Department officials.
Yonhap said the tests came on Wednesday, but U.S. officials said it was Tuesday. The discrepancy could not immediately be reconciled.
It was the third time in a month that North Korea test-fired a short-range missile, following launches May 25 and June 7.
The tests could increase tensions over North Korea's nuclear program, although the country is not believed capable of mounting a nuclear weapon on a missile.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe slammed the tests, calling them a provocation that defied the United Nations and could destabilize the region.
U.S. officials in Washington also criticized the launches.
