
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 16, 1994                   TAG: 9402160137
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

N. KOREA BACKS DOWN ON INSPECTION

North Korea, on the brink of a confrontation with the United Nations, ended weeks of delay Tuesday and agreed to the details of international inspections of its seven declared nuclear sites.

The deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency followed a pattern of delay, tension and last-minute cooperation that has characterized North Korean behavior since a crisis over its nuclear-weapons program erupted early last year.

But the inspectors will not be allowed to explore two undeclared sites where the communist regime is suspected of storing nuclear waste. It was the demand to see these facilities - and North Korea's refusal - that triggered a yearlong crisis that has heightened tension on the Korean peninsula.

For the moment, the deal removes the likelihood that the U.N. Security Council will punish the Pyongyang government, a move that North Korea had warned could bring "catastrophic consequences." The United States and the atomic agency had set a deadline of next Monday for North Korea to agree to the inspections or face the Security Council action.

The agreement also spares the United States the tough job of persuading China, a North Korean ally with a Security Council veto, to acquiesce in imposing sanctions.

But the agreement doesn't put to rest fears that North Korea already may have developed and hidden one or more nuclear devices, which it could someday use against South Korea or Japan.

After six weeks of haggling over terms, the atomic agency announced Tuesday in Vienna that North Korean authorities "accept the inspection activities which have been requested . . . in the seven declared nuclear facilities." Inspectors will leave shortly for a visit likely to last two weeks.

The inspections are designed to ensure that North Korea hasn't used the year since the last full look at the sites to divert nuclear material to its weapons program.

The inspectors' task is made difficult, however, by the fact that camera film and batteries installed to monitor the facilities have run out by now.

by CNB