South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon on Sunday called for a "smooth" disablement of North Korea's nuclear facilities by year-end, one day before a team of US experts is due to begin work there.
"At this point, participants in the six-party talks give priority to the smooth fulfilment of duties aimed at disabling nuclear facilities by the end of this year," Song told reporters before heading to Canada and the United States.
"It should proceed steadily, as obstacles could surface anytime," he was quoted by Yonhap news agency as saying.
Under a six-nation deal including the two Koreas, China, the United States, Russia and Japan, the North has promised to disable the key facilities at its Yongbyon complex and declare all of its nuclear programmes by year's end.
The North will in exchange receive energy aid worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Pyongyang has already shut down its Yongbyon plants, and some heavy fuel oil has in return been shipped to the energy-starved state.
A nine-member team of US experts is to start disabling work at Yongbyon beginning Monday, chief US envoy Christopher Hill said Saturday.
North Korea tested its first atomic weapon in October 2006.
If the North goes on next year to dismantle the plants and give up its plutonium and weapons, it can expect normalised relations with Washington and a peace pact to replace the armistice which ended the 1950-1953 Korean War.
North Korea also wants to be taken off a US list of state sponsors of terrorism, but Hill said Pyongyang would first have to satisfy Washington that it was not engaged in any terrorism-related activities.
Song is to meet his Canadian counterpart Maxime Bernier in Ottawa Tuesday before holding talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington on Wednesday, according to Seoul officials.
