The chief U.S. envoy to the North Korea nuclear talks says he hopes the isolated Communist regime will be completely nuclear free by the end of 2008.

A team of experts in North Korea to oversee the disabling of its atomic facilities said they were satisfied with progress as the reclusive country prepares to host the US envoy to nuclear talks.

China is pleased with the ongoing progress made in decommissioning North Korea's nuclear installations, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday.

A failure by the United States to take North Korea off a list of state sponsors of terrorism could give the North a justification for walking away from six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.

A South Korean official says North Korea is expected to give the first complete account of its nuclear programs in one or two weeks as part of an international disarmament agreement.

A team of American nuclear experts has arrived in North Korea to begin disabling the country's main nuclear facility. North Korea appears on track to keep its promise to divulge and disable all its nuclear facilities by the end of the year.

North Korea agreed at six-nation talks Tuesday to receive aid in equipment, in place of half of the fuel aid pledged to the country for disabling its nuclear reactor, Seoul's Yonhap agency said.

U.S. experts arrived in North Korea on Thursday to discuss preparations for the disablement of the country's nuclear facilities by the end of 2007 under a six-party denuclearization deal, Yonhap reported.

Six nations engaged in protracted talks on North Korea's nuclear disarmament gathered for a new round of negotiations in the Chinese capital Thursday after a six-month break.

U.S. and North Korean envoys opened talks in Geneva Saturday on normalizing relations, and possibly removing the reclusive state from Washington's list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

Senior U.S. and North Korean diplomats meet next Saturday and Sunday in Geneva for talks on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program and on the prospect of normalized relations. The bilateral working group meeting is part of the broader six-party disarmament process.

Radioactive contamination could delay the work of experts from the UN nuclear watchdog to seal North Korea's nuclear facilities, shut down by Pyongyang under a disarmament deal agreed in Beijing in February, the Kyodo news agency said Wednesday.