SEOUL - SOUTH Korea will send a team of nuclear experts to North Korea this week to survey Pyongyang's unused fuel rods, the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

The delegation led by Hwang Joon-kook, Seoul's No. 2 nuclear envoy for the disarmament talks on the North's nuclear weapons programmes, will fly to the North on Thursday, the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry did not say how long the delegation will stay in the North.

During the trip, the South Korean experts will examine technological and economic factors over the unused fuel rods, the ministry said.

Pyongyang agreed to export its unused fuel rods to other countries during the latest disarmament talks in Beijing in December. The talks also involve South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.

Seoul has said in the past it would consider buying the North's fuel rods if they can be adapted to work in South Korea's power-generating nuclear reactors.

The U.S. and five other regional powers have sought to coax North Korea, which tested a nuclear device in 2006, to abandon its nuclear programme by offering aid for disarmament. The process has been held up over verification of its past nuclear activities. -- AP