LEAD) U.S. scientists leave Pyongyang after talks on academic cooperation

(ATTN: UPDATES with N.K. vice premier meeting with U.S. businessmen at bottom,
English language report)
SEOUL, Dec. 15 (Yonhap) -- A group of American scientists wrapped up their
five-day trip to North Korea aimed at fostering bilateral cooperation in science
research, Pyongyang's media said Tuesday.

The six-member delegation from the American Assoc
iation for Advancement of
Science (AAAS), led by Peter Agre, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, had traveled to
Pyongyang on a mission to explore future opportunities for collaborative research
activities in various fields.
The U.S. team "left here for home by air on Tuesday after discussing the matter
of cooperation and exchange in the field of scientific research," the Korean
Central News Agency said. It gave no further information.
Agre, director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute and president of
the AAAS, said earlier that his delegation would meet with scientists, university
and science policy officials in the North. He also planned to give a lecture for
North Korean officials and students at the Kim Chaek University of Technology in
Pyongyang.
The visit coincided with a trip last week by U.S. President Barack Obama's
special envoy, Stephen Bosworth, who later said both sides reached a "common
understanding" on the need to resume a multilateral form on ending the North's
nuclear program.
Another U.S. delegation visiting North Korea, consisting of businessmen, met with
the North's Vice Premier Ro Tu-chol on Tuesday, state media said in a
one-sentence dispatch. The team from the Business Executives for National
Security, a non-partisan Washington-based organization led by Charles Boyd, a
retired U.S. Air Force four-star general, arrived in Pyongyang a day earlier.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)