Korea to expel UN nuclear inspectors

North Korea said today it will expel UN inspectors who have been monitoring its mothballed nuclear facilities, escalating Pyongyang's confrontation with the United States.

North Korea plans to expel two nuclear inspectors from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea's move would deprive the UN nuclear watchdog of its only remaining means to monitor whether Korea's recent decision to reactivate its frozen nuclear facilities would lead to development of nuclear weapons.

Earlier, South Korea's President-elect Roh Moo-hyun said North Korea's defiant attitude could make it difficult for him to continue his predecessor's policy of seeking reconciliation with Pyongyang after he takes office in February.

"Whatever North Korea's rationale is in taking such actions, they are not beneficial to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in north-east Asia, nor are they helpful for its own safety and prosperity," Mr Roh said in a statement.

North Korea's move against the inspectors came after the head of the agency accused the communist regime of "nuclear brinkmanship" yesterday as the Stalinist state moved closer to firing up an atomic reactor capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.

Mohamed el-Baradei, director-general of the IAEA, said the move by North Korea to re-start its nuclear programme "raises serious non-proliferation concerns and is tantamount to nuclear brinkmanship".

Pyongyang defied international condemnation yesterday and moved 600 more fuel rods to the Soviet-designed 5-megawatt atomic reactor.

On Christmas Day, engineers moved 400 rods to the plant, which is part of a sprawling, complex at Yongbyon 50 miles north of the capital. Last weekend the North Koreans disabled IAEA surveillance equipment at the complex.

Chief among the agency's worries is the reprocessing plant, which can convert spent fuel rods into plutonium. The North Koreans have 8,000 spent fuel rods in storage. According to the CIA, they could be turned into enough weapons-grade plutonium to make five nuclear bombs.

Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell said today that the Government believed North Korea's conduct was "very worrying, dangerous and unacceptable".

But he believed that united diplomatic pressure would come to bear on the country which is making a "clumsy attempt" to gain international clout rather than a real threat.

He told BBC Radio Five Live: "One of the problems with the North Korean regime is that it's almost hermetically sealed, it's cut off from the outside the world and they do do hamfisted, unpredictable things.

"However we think at the moment that this is a clumsy attempt to gain international leverage rather than being a move to set itself in contravention and opposition to the international community."

He said that the unified front from China, Russia, the United States, Europe and the UK on this issue meant that diplomacy was the best route to winning North Korea round.

"It is a worrying situation but we want that firm message going across that this kind of conduct is unacceptable, that it is dangerous and North Korea has got to stop developing the nuclear weapons programme and its got to get back into compliance with its international obligations."

The current hiatus is causing discomfort in Washington, not least because it exposes the Bush administration to accusations of double standards in its handling of two "axis of evil" nations.

The US position is that the North Koreans are not interested in military conflict but in upping the ante in negotiations over shipments of fuel oil and other necessities.

The latest crisis began in October when Pyongyang confirmed US intelligence findings that it has been operating a secret uranium-enriching programme. In retaliation, the US, South Korea, the EU and Japan stopped deliveries of fuel oil – part of a 1994 agreement that was in return for a nuclear freeze.