YONHAP NEWS

Ban's envoy due in Pyongyang on N. Korean nuke, other issues

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 (Yonhap) -- A special envoy of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will visit North Korea next month, Ban's office said in a statement, amid conflicting signals on international engagement from the impoverished, nuclear armed communist state.

   The four-day visit from Feb. 9 by Under-Secretary-General Lynn Pascoe comes as Pyongyang fired artillery rounds into the western sea border with South Korea in the past days and resisted international pressure to return to the six-party talks for its denuclearization.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said last week that he may be able to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il this year to discuss the nuclear issue and others, spawning speculation that talks are under way for a breakthrough in inter-Korean ties due to the economic plight the North has been suffering from international sanctions.

   "Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe will visit the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from 9 to 12 February 2010 as a Special Envoy of the Secretary-General," the statement said. "Pascoe will discuss with DPRK officials all issues of mutual interest and concern in a comprehensive manner. He will also meet with the U.N. country team, and members of the diplomatic corps, and will visit several U.N. project sites."

   Pascoe will also visit South Korea, China and Japan, the statement said.

   The envoy's planned visit revives bilateral contact between the global body and Pyongyang, which has been severed since 2005 when Maurice Strong, then Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy for North Korea, resigned over his alleged role in a lobbying scandal involving the oil-for-food program in Iraq. Strong last visited Pyongyang in 2004.

   Since taking office in January 2007, Ban, former South Korean foreign minister, has expressed his intention to visit Pyongyang to facilitate the six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear ambitions, providing humanitarian aid to the impoverished North and other issues.

   A senior U.N. official, asking anonymity, said "The U.N. delegation's visit is meaningful as it resumes the high-level dialogue between the U.N. and North Korea which has been suspended for years."

   "The delegation will meet with senior North Korean officials to discuss the North Korean nuclear issue, humanitarian aid and a variety of other issues," he said.

   The U.N. team will also visit projects being undertaken by the U.N. Development Program, the World Food Program and other U.N. agencies, the official said.

   North Korea cancelled a planned visit to Pyongyang by a U.N. delegation led by Pascoe last March amid rising tensions over North Korea's imminent rocket launch banned by U.N. resolutions.

   North Korea fired a long-range rocket in April, claiming it is part of its peaceful space program only to invite further sanctions from the U.N.

   Pyongyang responded by conducting a nuclear test, the second after one in 2006, and boycotted six-party talks on ending its nuclear weapons programs, involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.

   U.S. President Barack Obama's special representative for North Korea policy, Stephen Bosworth, visited Pyongyang in December, the first of its kind since Obama's inauguration, but failed to persuade the North to come back to the talks.

   The North has demanded that the sanctions be lifted and a peace treaty be signed to replace an armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War before it comes back to the nuclear talks, although the U.S. calls for reopening of the talks first.

   hdh@yna.co.kr
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