North Korea has agreed with US troubleshooter Bill Richardson to permit the return of UN nuclear inspectors as part of a package of measures to ease tensions on the peninsula, CNN reported Monday.

CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer, who is travelling with Richardson in Pyongyang, said the North Koreans had agreed to let inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency go back to its Yongbyon nuclear facility.

They had also agreed to allow fuel rods for the enrichment of uranium to be shipped to an outside country, and to the creation of a military commission and hotline between the two Koreas and the United States, Blitzer said.

A veteran negotiator with the reclusive communist state, New Mexico Governor Richardson was due to brief reporters in Beijing later Monday after concluding his five-day visit to Pyongyang.

The former US ambassador to the UN was said by Blitzer to be "disappointed" at the UN Security Council's failure late Sunday to agree a statement on the Korean situation.

Richardson believed that such a statement would have given the South Koreans "political cover" to cancel a planned live-fire military exercise on a flashpoint border island bombarded by North Korea last month, Blitzer said.

North Korea in April 2009 pulled out of six-nation nuclear disarmament talks and ordered US and IAEA nuclear inspectors out of the country, after the UN Security Council condemned Pyongyang for an April 5 rocket launch.

It staged its second nuclear test a month later.

Tensions have soared anew since last month's North Korean artillery attack on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which killed four people including civilians and damaged dozens of homes.

The South's forces were due to start the live-fire drill on Yeonpyeong later Monday, despite North Korean threats of deadly retaliation. But heavy fog had caused the drill to be delayed, South Korean officials said.

Richardson had urged top North Korean leaders to show "maximum restraint" over the planned South Korean drills.

In Pyongyang over the weekend, Richardson met top nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-Gwan and Major General Pak Rim-Su, who leads North Korean forces along the tense border with the South.

Pak told Richardson that North Korea had recovered the remains of several hundred US servicemen killed during the 1950-1953 Korean War and offered to help secure their return to the United States, CNN said.

earlier related report
UN council failure leaves no 'game plan' for Korea
United Nations (AFP) Dec 19, 2010 - The UN Security Council failed Sunday to agree a statement on the Korean military crisis and Russia warned that the international community was now left without "a game plan" to counter escalating tensions.

China fended off Western demands that North Korea be publicly condemned for its November 23 artillery assault on Yeonpyeong island which killed four South Koreans, diplomats said.

It even rejected a proposed statement which did not mention North Korea or the Yeonpyeong name in a paragraph on the November 23 attack, diplomats said.

Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin emerged from the Security Council to explain how eight hours of formal negotiations, and private talks which included the ambassadors from North and South Korea, had failed.

Unofficial contacts were to continue but US ambassador Susan Rice, the Security Council president for December, told reporters it was "safe to predict that the gaps that remain are unlikely to be bridged."

Russia demanded the meeting hoping for a Council statement to send a "restraining signal" to the two Koreas and to call on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send a special envoy to negotiate with the rival states, Churkin said.

He expressed hope that a UN envoy could still go, warning that the international community now has no weapon against the spiraling tensions.

"Now we have a situation with very serious political tension and no game plan on the diplomatic side," Churkin said.

Six nation talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons have come to a halt "and there is no other diplomatic activity, so we believe that there must be an initiative."

The ambassador reaffirmed a call by the Russian and Chinese foreign ministers for South Korea to call off a live-firing drill near Yeonpyeong. North Korea has said it will retaliate against the exercise.

But the United States again strongly condemned the communist North's "unprovoked aggression" and defended South Korea's right to stage drills.

"The majority of council members made clear their view that it was important to clearly condemn the events of November 23 and the attack by DPRK (North Korea) on Yeonpyong island," Rice said.

Britain proposed a statement which said the council "condemns the attack launched by the DPRK on the ROK (South Korea) on November 23."

In an effort to overcome China's objections, Russia produced a new draft which said simply: "The members of the Security Council condemned the shelling of 23 November 2010 resulting in the loss of human life, including civilians, and strongly deplored the aggravation of tension in the Korean peninsula it led to."

That was blocked by China, diplomats told AFP.

Rice said most council members opposed a statement "that was ambiguous in some fashion about what had transpired in the run up to today and simply to pretend that time began today.

"That's not the case. There is a history, there have been two very serious attacks by DPRK on the Republic of Korea over the last nine months.

"The vast majority of the Council thinks that that needs to be clearly stated and condemned."

She said the Seoul government had shown "enormous restraint" ever since the warship Cheonam was sunk in March with the loss of 46 crew.

"The planned exercises are fully consistent with South Korea's legal right to self defense," Rice declared.

"It has been done and notified transparently, responsibly, and will not occur in a fashion that we believe gives North Korea any excuse to respond in the fashion that it has threatened to do."

North Korea has warned of a "disaster" if the firing drill is held on the contested sea border.