North Korea is willing irreversibly to shut down its nuclear plants as part of a six-nation deal, a senior South Korean official said Monday. The communist's state chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-Gwan has reaffirmed that disabling the plants would be an "irreversible process," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. Kim was speaking during a meeting with his South Korean counterpart Chun Yung-Woo in New York on Saturday, said the official, quoted by Yonhap news agency.

Under the agreement reached in Beijing on February 13, the nuclear-armed North agreed to "disable" its plants in return for economic aid and diplomatic benefits.

But it is not clear whether that would mean the sites could later be restarted.

Kim was due to meet his US counterpart Christopher Hill in New York later Monday for initial talks on normalising relations.

The South's lead negotiator Chun said after meeting Kim Saturday that the North appears strongly committed to the first steps of the agreement.

Under those steps the North must shut down and seal its Yongbyon nuclear complex and admit international inspectors by mid-April. Disabling would be the next phase.

Suspicions arose after Pyongyang's official media said the six-party agreement requires it to "temporarily suspend" its facilities.

"Kim said his country only used the expression 'temporary suspension' because the facilities can be restarted at any time until they are completely disabled," the Seoul official said.

He said there was "absolutely no difference of opinion between North Korea and the other countries on what 'disabling' means."

The latest nuclear row erupted in 2002 when the United States accused North Korea of operating a secret highly-enriched uranium (HEU) programme to make nuclear weapons.

US intelligence officials have softened their position, saying they are unsure how much progress the HEU programme had made.

The South Korean official said North Korea repeated that it "has no HEU programme" but could discuss the issue.

The comments were the latest hopeful sign for the Beijing deal.

Over the weekend the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that its chief Mohamed ElBaradei will travel to North Korea on March 13 to discuss how to monitor its promised dismantling of nuclear facilities.

Source: Agence France-Presse