SEOUL, Sept 21: South Korea will delay a planned aid shipment to the North this week as Pyongyang moved to restart its nuclear reactor in violation of the aid-for-disarmament deal, a news report said on Sunday.

Yonhap news agency, citing an unnamed government source, said the delivery of 1,500-tonne steel pipes -- originally due on Thursday -- would be put on hold until mid- or late-October.

Seoul had planned to provide the North with 3,000 tonnes of steel pipes, half this month and the other half next month, Yonhap said.

The shipment is part of an energy aid package North Korea was promised in return for disarmament under the six-nation deal involving the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia.

The South Korean shipment delay was in response to North Korea’s move to restart its atomic reactor at Yongbyon in a sign that the landmark disarmament deal was falling apart.

North Korea’s foreign ministry on Friday confirmed work was underway to restore the plutonium-producing reactor in response to the US failure to drop the North from a terrorism blacklist.

The ministry said Pyongyang “neither wishes to be delisted as a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’ nor expects such a thing to happen” in a harsh statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

But Seoul officials who met North Korean officials on energy aid on Friday said Pyongyang was “still interested” in the six-party process.

An unnamed government source told Yonhap Sunday: “The government remains unchanged in its plan to send the North the promised aid... But the timing for its delivery will be adjusted given the situation in North Korea.”

The source warned North Korea against accelerating the pace of its key nuclear facilties.

“Although restoration is proceeding quite slowly at the moment, Seoul will have to make a counter move once the process picks up speed,” the source added.

As part of the six-nation aid-for-disarmament agreement, the North last November began disabling its Yongbyon plants.

In return the five negotiating partners promised to provide a million tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent energy assistance to the North.

In June Pyongyang handed over a list of its nuclear programmes and facilities. But Washington says it will not take the final step of removing the North from the terror list until it agrees on ways to verify its nuclear declaration.—AFP