US: North Korea willing to shut nuclear reactor

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A senior US envoy just back from North Korea said the country showed readiness to promptly shut down a plutonium-producing reactor, but that completely disarming the communist state would be a long, arduous process. Christopher Hill - the chief US negotiator at international talks on North Korea's nuclear programs - was expected to brief his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo on Saturday on the outcome of his two-day surprise trip to the North Korean capital. Speaking in Seoul on Friday after his return from Pyongyang, Hill said he was "buoyed by a sense that we are going to be able to achieve our full objectives, that is complete denuclearization, but also burdened by the realization of the fact that we're going to have to spend a great deal of time, a great deal of effort, a lot of work in achieving these."