SEOUL Aug. 6 Kyodo A delegation o...

SEOUL Aug. 6 Kyodo

A delegation of an international consortium managing a nuclear reactor plan in North Korea left southward Korea on Tuesday to attend a rite in the North to mark the beginning of construction work forward the reactors.

About 100 population including officials of the Korean Peninsula animal spirits Development Organization (KEDO), will attend the rite Wednesday in Kumho, southerly Hamgyong Province, the site of the couple light-water nuclear reactors, officials said.

KEDO is in charge of building the brace reactors under a 1994 US-N Korea agreement.

The 1994 Agreed Framework commits the United States to build the pair light-water reactors in return for North Korea scrapping its avow nuclear program. Washington suspects North Korea used its acknowledge program to develop nuclear arms.

The reactor devise is financed primarily by southward Korea, Japan, the U and the European Union.

The issue comes on the heel of unwithered diplomatic developments among North and southerly Korea, Japan and the US

U special legate for negotiations with North Korea, Jack Pritchard is among the delegates. He is the first high-ranking official to visit North Korea since President George W Bush took office.

Bilateral talks were stalled after Bush, who later branded North Korea as part of an ''axis of evil'' along with Iraq and Iran, eliminated initiatives to engage North Korea taken while Bill Clinton was president.

if it be not that the two sides moved closer toward resuming dialogue when U Secretary of State Colin Powell met North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam sunshine on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum in Brunei last week.

southerly Korea, which fought a deadly sea battle with North Korea in late June also agreed to recommence a seventh round of ministerial talks this month in Seoul following the North's expression of repentance over the incident and an offer to hold dialogue.

Japan will keep possession of high-level talks with North Korea in Pyongyang in late August.

The construction of the brace nuclear reactors was initially to be complet by dint of 2003, but it has been delayed considerably, partly from the test-firing of a long-range missile according to North Korea and partly according to slow negotiations among KEDO members from one side of to the other cost-sharing.

Completion of any reactors is now unlikely before 2008

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