North korea has endorsed an agreement to dismantle all of its nuclear facilities by year-end, according to a joint six-nation statement released by China in Beijing on Wednesday, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

The agreement sets out a timetable for North Korea to disclose all its nuclear programs and disable all facilities in return for 950,000 metric tonne of fuel oil or its equivalent in economic aid. Negotiators reached agreement on a draft plan in Beijing on Sunday after four days of six-nation talks. The US had said on Tuesday that it endorsed the plan but was waiting for approval from other nations involved in the negotiations.

The announcement in China gives final approval by the other five parties to the talks — Russia, China, South Korea, Japan and North Korea. The statement was released by Wu Dawei, head of the Chinese delegation to the talks. As part of the agreement, North Korea will make a full declaration of all its nuclear programmes by the end of the year and will complete the disabling of its plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon. Wu said that as part of the agreement, Washington would lead an expert group to the capital, Pyongyang, “within the next two weeks to prepare for disablement” and would provide initial payment for the disablement activities. President Bush called the agreement an “important effort, which will help secure the future peace and prosperity of the Northeast Asian region.” “Today’s announcement reflects the common commitment of the participants in the Six Party Talks to realise a Korean Peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons,” he said. Under an agreement reached in February, North Korea has shut down its Yongbyon facility, but the reactor still has to be fully disabled. According to Xinhua, the agreement on Wednesday foresees the disablement of the 5 MW experimental reactor, the reprocessing plant and the nuclear fuel rod fabrication facility in Yongbyon by December 31, 2007. Dana M. Perino, the chief White House spokeswoman, said: “What is encouraging about it is that in the past you’ve seen that the North Koreans had shut down the Yongbyon facility. But what they’ve started to do now is to start dismantling it, and they have agreed to dismantle it by the end of the year. We are going to hold them to it. We are going to see if they’re going to be able to make that deadline.”

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