IAEA Says in Talks with N. Korea over Inspectors' Visit

The U.N. atomic agency IAEA has begun consultations with North Korea over a possible visit to the country by its inspectors to monitor its nuclear activities, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

"I can confirm that the IAEA has started consultations with the DPRK (North Korea) about its invitation," Gill Tudor, spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Agencce France Presse by phone.

She could not yet say however when the consultations would end and when the inspectors' visit to the isolated country might take place.

Pyongyang announced earlier this week that it had invited Vienna-based U.N. inspectors to monitor a nuclear freeze deal with the United States.

Tudor later confirmed the IAEA had received the invitation last Friday.

North Korea expelled the agency's inspectors in 2009.

Last month however, it agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment program, along with long-range missile launches and nuclear tests, in return for 240,000 tons of U.S. food. It also promised to readmit IAEA inspectors.

The regime, now led by Kim Jong-Un who succeeded his late father Kim Jong-Il in December, first disclosed its enrichment program in November 2010, and carried out nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.