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SEOUL, S KOREA - SOUTH Korea will ship 1,000 tons of copper to North Korea this week in return for the disabling of its nuclear plants, officials said on Monday.
The shipment worth 8.9 billion won (S$12 million) will begin on Thursday, the unification ministry said.
The North agreed last year in landmark talks to disable nuclear plants at Yongbyon under a deal reached with the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
In return, South Korea, China, the United States and Russia have agreed to provide the North with 450,000 tons of heavy fuel oil and alternative energy aid equivalent to the value of another 500,000 tons.
South Korea has already made a shipment of 5,100 tons of steel plates to the North, apparently for use in patching up its decrepit power stations.
But disputes over Pyongyang's declaration of nuclear activities due last December 31 have delayed the permanent dismantling of the plants and the handover of all nuclear material.
Hopes are growing that the impasse will soon end since the North this month gave the United States 18,000 pages of operating and production records for its Yongbyon reactor and reprocessing plant.
These produced weapons-grade plutonium, including the material that the North used to stage a nuclear test in October 2006. -- AFP
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