The trip, first reported Friday by USA Today, would mark the first time outsiders have been allowed to inspect North Korea's main nuclear facilities at Yongbyon (search), north of Pyongyang, since the communist country expelled U.N. nuclear monitors in late 2002.
USA Today reported that Washington approved the trip and it was scheduled for Jan. 6-10. The newspaper said the U.S. delegation would include Sig Hecker, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (search) from 1985 to 1997. The laboratory produced the first U.S. nuclear bomb.
"The report is true," an official at the South Korean Foreign Ministry said. "The U.S. side has informed us of the trip."
USA Today said the delegation also included a China expert from Stanford University, two Senate foreign policy aides who have previously visited Pyongyang and a former State Department official who has negotiated with North Korea.
Jason Rebholz, a spokesman of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, said he had no information on the trip and could not comment on the news report.
North Korea is believed to be running a nuclear weapons program at Yongbyon. The United States is trying to persuade the North to give up its nuclear program in return for aid and better ties with the outside world.
North Korea demands that the United States provide it with economic aid and security assurances in return for dismantling its nuclear weapons program. Washington wants Pyongyang to abandon its program first.
The nuclear standoff flared in October 2002 when U.S. officials said Pyongyang admitted having a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 pact.
North Korea has said it is willing to hold a second round of six-nation talks early this year on ending the crisis. The first round ended in August without agreement or a date for a new meeting. Russia, China, South Korea and Japan also are taking part.
Also Friday, South Korea vowed to intensify diplomatic efforts to end the standoff.
"Resolving the nuclear issue peacefully is the most important goal of our diplomacy in the new year," Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said.
Unification Minister Jeong se-hyun (search), whose agency is in charge of relations with the North, predicted that "international efforts to resolve the nuclear issue will gain speed this year."
