South Korea said on Wednesday that its promised shipment of energy aid to North Korea was on track a day after Pyongyang’s reclusive leader urged progress in a deal to dismantle his country’s nuclear programmes.

In his first official remarks on the long-delayed pact, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il said “all the parties should implement the initial actions” of a disarmament agreement reached in February, according to a statement posted on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s portal.

“Recently, there have been signs that the situation on the Korean peninsula is easing,” Kim was paraphrased as saying to Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi during his meeting with Kim in Pyongyang, the ministry statement said on Tuesday.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported Yang left North Korea on Wednesday, wrapping up a three-day trip.

Under the February deal governing the shutdown of the North’s Yongbyon reactor—agreed by the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States—Seoul had promised to send 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil to Pyongyang. Kim Nam-sik, a spokesperson at South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said the first shipment of heavy fuel oil will head to the North “within next week”.

The shipment, Kim said, will amount to between 5,000 and 10,000 tonnes. Pyongyang is to eventually receive further energy or other aid equivalent to 950,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil in return for irreversibly disabling the reactor and closing all nuclear programmes.

The initial steps in the pact include the shutdown of the North’s main reactor in exchange for economic aid and political concessions.

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