UNITED NATIONS -- The still-leaking nuclear power station at Fukushima, Japan, will be completely capped and placed in "cold shutdown" by the end of this year, Japan's new prime minister told world leaders here this morning.

Though he acknowledged that radioactive material continues to leak from the reactors hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said the 2,000 personnel assigned to stop the leaks are operating ahead of schedule.

Noda declined to offer a precise date for when cold shutdown will be achieved, saying the disaster would be under control "roughly within 2011."

The radioactivity emanating from the partially melted-down reactors is now at just "one-four-millionth of the level at the early stage of the accident," Noda said. And the fact that he recently visited and saw the damaged plant with his own eyes proves that Japan is on track to stabilize the situation, he added.

"It is clear that electrical power supplies for emergency use and pumps should not have been situated in locations that could be submerged by tsunamis," Noda said. "While a full-scaled process to discover the cause of the accident will continue for some time, we have identified 'faults' as well as 'lessons learned' from them."

Noda's comments, made at the opening of a high-level meeting here on nuclear safety and security, strongly suggested that he is moving to restart Japan's shuttered nuclear power plants sometime next year, once the Fukushima investigation is complete and a new regulatory structure is in place. Japan is also eager to restart its nuclear power cooperation with developing countries, he indicated, and will "participate actively in efforts to ensure nuclear security."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon convened the nuclear safety talks on the sidelines of this week's annual general debate, when hundreds of world leaders gather to speak before the General Assembly and hold bilateral meetings. The presidents of France, Brazil, South Korea, Kazakhstan and Ukraine also gave statements, after which government representatives broke into two groups to continue their talks.

The nuclear safety meeting will continue through the first part of the day, but little to no concrete action is expected. Ban had earlier stated that he hoped to have nations adopt a set of minimum safety standards for all nuclear power generation in the world, but that effort was overridden by a lightly worded "plan of action" adopted earlier this month by the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Noda added that a special committee is undertaking a comprehensive investigation of the Fukushima nuclear aftermath and its consequences. But that report won't be available until next year, he said, when Japan plans to release it to the world at an international conference it will host along with the IAEA.

Japan is also breaking apart its Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, stripping it of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and making that a standalone authority to be renamed the Nuclear Safety and Security Agency. That restructuring will be completed by April 2012, Noda said.

The Japanese premier also promised to accelerate his nation's efforts to add more renewable power generation to its power grid.