North Korea had already removed "essential" equipment from its nuclear facilities by the time it decided to stop disabling them last month, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Wednesday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said its monitors observed the removal and storage of fuel rods and other important equipment from North Korea's nuclear complexes, and have some material under surveillance.
The IAEA's latest report suggests it may take Pyongyang some time to restore its main reactor to its operating state after the reclusive regime halted work to dismantle it.
More than half of the spent fuel rods at the Yongbyon plutonium-producing facility's nuclear power plant have been discharged, measured by the IAEA and moved to an adjacent spent fuel pond, the report said.
"These fuel rods, as well as those remaining in the reactor core, are under agency surveillance," it said.
The report was issued Tuesday to the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors, which will review the situation at a meeting in Vienna this month.
The agency made the document public Wednesday.
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said agency monitors also verified "the removal and storage of some of the essential equipment" at Yongbyon's radiochemical laboratory and a nuclear fuel fabrication plant.
ElBaradei said his agency's monitors documented the removals "through visual observation and photographic records."
The IAEA said it was doing its best to keep tabs on the facilities.
"The agency has continued to verify the shutdown status of the Yongbyon and Taechon nuclear facilities and is continuing to implement the ad hoc monitoring and verification arrangement with the cooperation of the DPRK," ElBaradei said, using the acronym for the North, formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The IAEA said North Korea first informed it on Aug. 18 at Yongbyon that it intended to stop dismantling the facilities.
The North said last week it stopped dismantling its reactor because Washington had not held up its end of their disarmament deal _ a promise to remove North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
On Wednesday, South Korea said the North had started restoring the facilities, though it did not say how it made that assessment or provide details.
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