US senator completes North Korean nuclear inspection

US Senator Carl Levin left North Korea on Sunday having carried out both talks with senior officials and a visit to a nuclear reactor 90km from the capital, Pyongyang.

Levin told the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS in Pyongyang before his departure that he believed his talks had been "very useful and resultative" .

Levin led a US delegation to Yongbyon, to see the deuterium-moderated nuclear reactor there.

"It is precisely this reactor, according to US intelligence data, that was capable of producing plutonium for an A-bomb and at one time posed a serious problem between the sides," the news agency said.

His visit took place within the framework of a 1994 US-North Korean agreement, under which the reactor's operation was discontinued.

Levin said he had seen that everything there was in a very good condition.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap earlier reported that Levin was scheduled to meet North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan during his four-day visit.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.