US envoy to visit N Korea
Monday, May 5, 2008
A US expert on Korea will visit Pyongyang today, in his first trip after the White House detailed allegations that the North had helped Syria build a reactor, a Japanese news agency said yesterday.
Sung Kim, director of the US State Department's Office of Korean Affairs, will visit the North for talks over Pyongyang's declaration of nuclear programmes, following his trip to the Communist state in late April, Kyodo news agency reported citing unnamed diplomatic sources in Beijing.
Both North Korea and the US envoy, who met with the North's nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-Gwan during the April 22-24 visit, said progress had been made during the trip.
But the optimistic tone was soon washed out by a wave of accusations in Washington that North Korea had helped Syria build a nuclear reactor at a site destroyed by an Israeli raid in September.
A spokeswoman for the US embassy in Beijing said that she had no information on any planned trip by Sung to North Korea.
North Korea has shut down its main nuclear reactor and is in the process of disabling it under a six-party deal that would offer Pyongyang energy aid, diplomatic and security benefits in return for full denuclearisation.
The deal has however stalled due to a four-month delay.AFP
Sung Kim, director of the US State Department's Office of Korean Affairs, will visit the North for talks over Pyongyang's declaration of nuclear programmes, following his trip to the Communist state in late April, Kyodo news agency reported citing unnamed diplomatic sources in Beijing.
Both North Korea and the US envoy, who met with the North's nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-Gwan during the April 22-24 visit, said progress had been made during the trip.
But the optimistic tone was soon washed out by a wave of accusations in Washington that North Korea had helped Syria build a nuclear reactor at a site destroyed by an Israeli raid in September.
A spokeswoman for the US embassy in Beijing said that she had no information on any planned trip by Sung to North Korea.
North Korea has shut down its main nuclear reactor and is in the process of disabling it under a six-party deal that would offer Pyongyang energy aid, diplomatic and security benefits in return for full denuclearisation.
The deal has however stalled due to a four-month delay.AFP
Business Besides Oil
