A working group of US experts today left Beijing for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), aiming to begin the disabling of the nuclear facilities early next week.

Sung Kim, director of the US State Department's Office of Korea Affairs, who led the 9-member team, told reporters at a hotel in downtown Beijing that the main focus of their trip is "to go there and get (disablement) started as soon as possible".

"As soon as we are set up in Yongbyon we will begin. Hopefully early next week," Kim said.

The team, comprising officials from the US Energy Department as well as scientists and technicians, is scheduled to stay in the DPRK for one or two weeks and then another team will replace them, according to Kim, who also voiced the hope of disablement "accomplished before the end of this year".

"We had pretty good understanding to disable the three facilities in Yongbyon this year," Kim said.

Top envoys from the DPRK and the United States discussed on Wednesday on the disablement issue and how they would progress the way ahead till the end of the year.

The declaration process of the DPRK nuclear programs would begin within the next two weeks, US chief negotiator to the six-party talks Christopher Hill told reporters yesterday after the meeting.

The DPRK agreed to disable all existing nuclear facilities and to provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs by the end of this year, according to a joint document released on Oct. 3 when the second phase of the sixth round of six-party talks ended in Beijing.

The document said the disabling of the five megawatt Experimental Reactor, the Reprocessing Plant (Radiochemical Laboratory) and the Nuclear Fuel Rod Fabrication Facility in Yongbyon would be completed by Dec. 31.

Citing the disablement progress as "six parties' efforts", Kim called on relevant parties, namely the host China, the DPRK, United States, the People's Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan and Russia, to work jointly pushing forward the process.