U.S. nuclear experts expelled from N. Korea arrive in Beijing

BEIJING, April 17 Kyodo -
U.S. nuclear experts who were involved in disablement work at North Korea's
main nuclear complex arrived in Beijing from Pyongyang on Friday after they
were ordered to leave the country earlier this week.
None of the four experts made any substantial comments on their arrival at
Beijing international airport. They said questions should be directed to
Washington.
Before departing Pyongyang, one of them said the group will wait for further
instructions from Washington once they arrive in the Chinese capital.
''We're just headed back to Beijing at this point and then we'll get further
directions,'' he said at Pyongyang's international airport.
The U.S. experts had been disabling the Yongbyon nuclear complex, about 90
kilometers from Pyongyang, together with the North Koreans under a
denuclearization-for-assistance deal reached at the six-party talks.
Earlier this week, North Korea told the U.S. experts as well as inspectors from
the International Atomic Energy Agency who were monitoring the nuclear complex
to leave the country.
The expulsion of international staff is part of Pyongyang's response to a U.N.
Security Council statement condemning North Korea's rocket launch on April 5.
U.S. experts first came to the country in November 2007 and had been working in
rotation at Yongbyon.
IAEA inspectors, who had also been working in rotation at Yongbyon since July
2007, left the country on Thursday.
The only remaining U.S. staff for the disablement work is a U.S. government
official in Pyongyang, who is also expected to leave the country in the near
future.
Disablement work had been completed at two of the three facilities in the
Yongbyon complex. About 80 percent of the spent nuclear fuel rods from the
nuclear reactor, the only facility where work remained, had been pulled out
when work was stopped this week.
==Kyodo