U.N. consulting with N. Korea on resumption of dialogue channel: spokeswoman

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, March 3 (Yonhap) -- The United Nations said Tuesday that it is
consulting with North Korea on sending a U.N. delegation to the isolated
communist state to revive a dialogue channel suspended four years ago after the
resignation of a special envoy for North Korea.
"The United Nations has been working with the Permanent Mission of the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea to revive the dialogue channel between the DPRK, which
was suspended four years ago following Mr. Maurice Strong's resignation," Marie
Okabe, deputy spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said at a daily
news conference at the U.N. headquarters in New York, according to a transcript
released by the U.N.
"The dialogue is proceeding smoothly through the Department of Political
Affairs," she said. "No particular program for a visit to the DPRK has been set
at this point and the consultation is ongoing."
The spokeswoman was responding to a report that North Korea canceled a planned
visit to Pyongyang this week by a U.N. delegation led by Lynn Pascoe, U.N.
undersecretary-general for political affairs.
The report came at a sensitive time. North Korea is about to launch a rocket,
purportedly to orbit a communications satellite, a move the U.S. sees as a cover
for a test launch of a ballistic missile capable to reaching the mainland U.S.
Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special representative for North Korea, arrived in Beijing
Tuesday on the first leg of his three-nation Asian tour, which includes South
Korea and Japan, to discuss the stalled six-party talks and North Korea's missile
threat.
Upon arriving at a Beijing airport, Sung Kim, U.S. special envoy for the
six-party talks, said he would discuss not only the multilateral nuclear talks
but also the missile threat while meeting with officials in Beijing, Seoul and
Tokyo.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban said in January that he would send a high ranking
official to the North to discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons program,
humanitarian aid to the impoverished North and other issues.
Ban, former South Korean foreign minister, has said that he will do his utmost to
facilitate the six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions and
improve human rights record in the reclusive communist state, pledging soon to
appoint his own special envoy for North Korea to negotiate his possible trip to
Pyongyang.
Bilateral contact between the North and the global body has been severed since
2005 when Maurice Strong, then Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy for
North Korea, resigned after his involvement in a lobbying scandal.
In an apparent conciliatory gesture, Ban sent a congratulatory message to North
Korean leader Kim Jong-il for the 60th anniversary of the communist state's
founding in September last year.
North Korean leader Kim reciprocated by sending a New Year's greeting card to Ban
-- the first since Ban's inauguration in January 2007.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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