South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator Chun Yung-woo, who chairs the energy working group, said that the U.S. will also participate in an initial energy aid program to provide 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to the North in return for Pyongyang’s shutdown of nuclear facilities.

U.S. chief nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill, who is in Beijing to attend a plenary session of the six-party talks and a working group meeting, talks to reporters on leaving his hotel on Thursday./Yonhap

The U.S. is considering purchasing the power generators with money from the federal budget and delivering them to the North via NGOs that conduct humanitarian work there like the Eugene Bell Foundation. Under the terms of the Feb. 13 six-party agreement, North Korea will be given 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil if it takes initial steps to disable its nuclear facilities. The South Korean government plans to send the oil to North Korea in three shipments late this month or early next month, when International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors return to the North.

Meanwhile, an Australian diplomat said Thursday that North Korea appears to be shutting down and sealing the Yongbyon nuclear facilities. Peter Baxter, head of the Australian Foreign Ministry's North Asia Division, visited North Korea for four days beginning on Sunday at the head of an Australian government delegation. On the way home, the delegation stopped over in Beijing, where Baxter, without mentioning details, told reporters, "I heard nothing in my discussions with the North Korean officials to indicate that they were backtracking from that or seeking to impose new conditions outside of those which have been discussed in the six-party process."

(englishnews@chosun.com )