Senate committee to hold hearing on N. Korea: sources

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (Yonhap) -- The U.S. Senate foreign relations committee will
hold a closed-door hearing Wednesday on North Korea, the first since the launch
of the Barack Obama administration last month, congressional sources said Monday.
The hearing is to be held amid reports that the Obama administration is
sidelining North Korean nuclear and human rights issues due to an urgent economic
crisis and security challenges in the Middle East.
The hearing, to be attended by officials of the departments of state, defense,
and energy and intelligence agencies, will likely address the six-party talks
stalled over North Korea's refusal to allow international inspectors to take
samples from its main nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, north of its capital
Pyongyang.
Obama has said he will pursue six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear
ambitions concurrently with more direct engagement with the reclusive communist
state.
Among other issues to be discussed are North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's health.
The North Korean leader recently made his first public appearance in months for a
meeting with a senior Chinese communist party official in Pyongyang amid reports
he underwent brain surgery last summer.
Talks have abounded in recent months over a possible designation of Kim's third
son, Jong-un, as heir apparent. Kim's first son Jong-nam told reporters in
Beijing last week that he knew nothing about such a report and that his father is
the only one who can make a decision on his successor.
In an apparent gesture to gain attention from the new Obama administration, North
Korea has in recent weeks threatened to cut ties with South Korea in retaliation
against the conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak who pledged not to
seek reconciliation unless the North abandons its nuclear arsenal.
The North, however, has not yet leveled criticism at the Obama government.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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