"The disablement process is going on smoothly under the procedure agreed by the six-party talks," Deputy Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said told China's Xinhua news agency after visiting the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, to the north of Pyongyang.
The diplomat, who heads Chinese delegation at the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program, said "The engineers from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the U.S. are working hard for this (disablement)."
In October, Pyongyang agreed to disable its key nuclear facilities and submit a complete list of its nuclear programs by the year end in exchange for an additional 950,000 tons of heavy oil, including the 50,000 tons already provided by China, or equivalent assistance.
In return for its cooperation, North Korea is to receive aid equivalent to one million tons of heavy fuel oil, and the U.S. has promised to remove the country from its blacklist of countries suspected of aiding terrorism.
North Korea has already received a total of 100,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea and China for shutting down five nuclear facilities earlier in the year under the February 13 aid-for-denuclearization deal.
