12/22 02:57

By Seyoon Kim

Seoul, Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea disabled United Nations surveillance equipment installed at one of its nuclear reactors, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on its Web site.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general at the UN's nuclear agency expressed ``deep regret'' at North Korea's action to cut most of the seals on monitoring devices at its reactor in Nyongbyon, the agency said.

North Korea's actions ``prevented an orderly transition from IAEA monitoring of the freeze of the reactor to a situation where we would be monitoring the facility during its operation,'' ElBaradei said.

The agency urged North Korea not to take further action to resume its nuclear program. It said the UN continues to maintain a permanent inspector in North Korea and is monitoring the situation ``very closely.'' The atomic energy agency has been monitoring North Korea's nuclear facilities since 1994.

North Korea confirmed through the state-run Korea Central News Agency that it had removed seals on the devices, Agence France-Presse said.

Pyongyang has started ``the work of removing the seals and monitoring cameras from the frozen nuclear facilities for their normal operation to produce electricity,'' AFP quoted the North Korean new agency as saying.

North Korea said earlier this month it's restarting its nuclear power plants in response to a U.S. decision to halt fuel- oil shipments to the country. The oil was sent to North Korea in exchange for the government's suspension of its nuclear arms program under a 1994 agreement with the U.S., Japan and South Korea.

The South Korean government ``strongly urges the North to restore the surveillance equipment as soon as possible,'' Shim Yoon Joe, director-general at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said in a televised press conference.

-- Anonymous, December 22, 2002