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The U.N. nuclear watchdog is to approve monitoring procedures for North Korea's nuclear reactor shutdown early next month and send a delegation of its inspectors within several days of the decision, the IAEA spokesperson said Thursday.

In an interview with the Voice of America, Melissa Fleming, spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said a special board meeting will be convened on July 9 to approve procedures for monitoring and verifying the shutdown based on a report from IAEA inspectors currently in North Korea.

Within several days of board approval, a delegation of IAEA inspectors will likely be dispatched to the North to work out concrete steps to be taken in the future, the U.S. government-funded radio station quoted her as saying.

Meanwhile, the team of IAEA inspectors visiting North Korea is en route to the plutonium-producing reactor Pyongyang has vowed to shut down under a landmark February deal over its denuclearization.

The four-member team led by IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen traveled to the facilities about 90 kilometers away from the North Korean capital, a news report said. Heinonen, who arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday along with three of his colleagues, is to negotiate "arrangements for verification of the shutdown and sealing" of the North's main reactor during the five-day trip ending Saturday.

Heinonen was quoted as saying in Pyongyang, "We are going to see the facilities and continue our discussion in more detail."

Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon is in Washington for talks with his U.S. counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, on follow-up measures to the North's shutdown of the nuclear reactor.

On June 16, North Korea, which expelled IAEA inspectors in late 2002, said that it invited a "working-level delegation" to discuss procedures for shutting down the reactor north of Pyongyang.

Facilities subject to IAEA shutdown at Yongbyon include a 5-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor, a plutonium-producing radiochemical laboratory and a nuclear fuel rod fabrication plant.

On Feb. 13, North Korea promised to shut down its nuclear facilities and invite back inspectors from the IAEA for monitoring in return for massive energy aid from South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

But North Korea made retrieval of its frozen funds in a Macau bank a condition of the implementation of the nuclear disarmament deal with the five countries. The U.S. unblocked the money in March but its transfer to the North Korea was delayed due to American financial sanctions.

In 2005, the U.S. blacklisted Banco Delta Asia, a small bank in the Chinese-controlled territory, as a money-laundering concern.

That caused about US$25 million in North Korean funds to be frozen at the bank.

The issue was resolved only after the U.S. and Russian central banks intervened. No commercial banks came forward to help transfer the money which was largely believed to be "tainted."

The North Korean money, which had been sent to the Russian central bank from the U.S. Federal Reserve in New York, was transferred on Saturday to a bank in Russia's Far East where North Korea has an account.
SEOUL, June 28 (Yonhap News)