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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