IAEA Chief: North Korea Soliciting Talks

South Korea's top nuclear envoy Chun Yung-woo speaks during a press conference at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, Friday, Feb. 23, 2007. Chun said that North Korea's agreement to abandon its nuclear programs will only work if other countries create a welcoming political environment and do not give the communist nation excuses to go back on the deal.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) (Ahn Young-joon - AP)

VIENNA, Austria -- North Korea on Friday asked the chief U.N. atomic inspector to visit four years after expelling his experts and dropping out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty _ an encouraging sign the reclusive regime is serious about dismantling its weapons program.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, offered few details about his upcoming trip, which other agency officials said would likely occur in the second week of March.

Still, his announcement was significant because it signaled the North's willingness to subject its nuclear program to outside scrutiny for the first time since withdrawing from the Nonproliferation Treaty in January 2003, just weeks after ordering nuclear inspectors to leave.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailed the invitation _ which came five months after the North conducted its first nuclear weapon test _ as a "good beginning," an interpretation shared by the U.S. administration.

"We are really very pleased that the IAEA is now receiving the initial steps to be able to go back into North Korea to be able to verify compliance. It is indeed a good sign that it has happened as quickly as it has," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in Ottawa, Canada.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the invitation shows North Korea is willing to begin executing the terms of the six-nation deal reached Feb. 13 in which the North said it would dismantle its nuclear facilities and normalize relations with South Korea, Japan and the U.S. in exchange for oil shipments and security guarantees.

"We'll be interested in hearing his report when he gets back," Fratto said.

ElBaradei's trip will mark only an initial step in the long and complex process that the international community hopes will result in stripping the North of its nuclear weapons capabilities and ensuring it remains without such arms.

In a process that one U.N official said "could take years," IAEA inspectors would be tasked with re-establishing the monitoring of the plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear facility, and then being on site while it is closed and dismantled.

"At the same time, there has to be some kind of declaration of what North Korea has and some way of following that up," the official said on condition of anonymity because the information was confidential.

Little is know about the North's nuclear program, leaving the outside world to rely mostly on North Korean claims since IAEA inspectors left in December 2002.

Making sure North Korea declares all its nuclear facilities and shuts them down will likely be difficult. The country has sidestepped previous agreements, allegedly running a uranium-based weapons program even as it froze a plutonium-based one and sparking the latest nuclear crisis in late 2002. The North is believed to have countless mountainside tunnels in which to hide projects.