AP - North Korea seemed ready Friday to take a first step toward scaling back its nuclear weapons program, perhaps this weekend, as U.N. inspectors prepared to monitor the shutdown of its sole operating atomic reactor.
After years of tortuous negotiations and delays during which the North argued its nuclear program was needed for self-defense, the reclusive communist regime said last week that once it recieves the oil shipment scheduled to arrive Saturday, it would consider halting its reactor for the first time in five years.
"With the kind of help which we (have received) from the (North) in the past few weeks, we think we will do our job in a successful way," International Atomic Energy Agency team chief Adel Tolba said in Beijing.
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