| North Korea has agreed to allow a U.S. delegation that includes a top nuclear scientist to visit its nuclear complex at Yongbyon next week ahead of likely negotiations with its neighbors and the United States. The delegation would be the first to see the site since North Korea expelled foreign weapons inspectors a year ago. Members of the U.S. delegation say it includes Sig Hecker, director from 1985 to 1997 of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which produced the first U.S. nuclear bomb and still constructs weapons. Hecker has been told he can visit Yongbyon, where the North Koreans restarted a reactor last year and may have reprocessed used fuel to make plutonium for a half dozen bombs. By inviting Hecker to Yongbyon, the regime of Kim Jong Il may want to prove that it has nuclear weapons as a way of bolstering a tough negotiating stance. It may also want to try to defuse tensions by showing that its nuclear sites will be open to inspection if a deal is reached. |