Korean nuclear tour ends

More North Koreans will visit the South's nuclear stations

A delegation of 20 North Korean nuclear engineers has ended a tour of South Korea to learn how to build and operate nuclear power plants.

The visit was part of a 1994 agreement between the United States and North Korea under which an international consortium will build two light-water reactors in the North and train hundreds of workers to operate them.

In return, the North has promised to freeze its nuclear weapons programme.

The engineers were the first North Koreans to go to the South since Cabinet-level talks between the two countries broke down last month.

By the end of next year, 290 more North Koreans are due to have been trained at South Korean facilities.

Weapons-grade plutonium

The delegation - led by Kim Hui-moon, a Cabinet-level official - visited Ulchin, an east coast village where four French-built nuclear reactors are in operation, and Kori on the south-east coast for a tour of four US-built reactors.

They also visited the headquarters of South Korea's state utility, Korea Electric Power, the main contractor of the reactor project.

The US-led consortium building the reactors, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), includes Japan, South Korea and the European Union. It has completed about 15% of the reactor project.

The two US-designed 1,000-megawatt reactors will replace the North's Soviet-designed, graphite-moderated reactors, which experts say produce greater amounts of weapons-grade plutonium.

Compensation call

However, consortium officials say the completion of the $4.6bn reactor project in North Korea, originally scheduled for 2003, will have to be delayed for several years.

As its energy crisis worsens, the North has threatened to abandon the 1994 accord and has demanded that Washington pay compensation for the delays.

Consortium officials say the delay was caused by North Korea, which pulled workers out of the construction site and demanded that they be paid higher wages.

The Korean Peninsula was divided in 1945. About 37,000 US troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War between the North and South.