Report: North Korea Invites U.S. Envoy For Talks

by Associated Press
WCBS-TV 2 Online
August 25, 2009
http://wcbstv.com/national/north.korea.us.2.1142973.html

Seoul, South Korea (AP) - North Korea has invited top envoys of President Barack Obama to visit the communist nation in what would be the first nuclear negotiations between the two countries under his presidency, a news report said Tuesday.

North Korea recently offered the invitation to Stephen Bosworth, special envoy to North Korea, and chief nuclear negotiator Sung Kim, and the U.S. government is strongly considering sending them to the North next month, Seoul's JoongAng Ilbo daily reported.

The U.S. Embassy in Seoul said it had no comment on the report.

The JoongAng report, citing an unidentified high-level diplomatic source in Washington, said the U.S. diplomats might be able to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during the visit, considering Pyongyang's recent conciliatory attitude.

Yonhap news agency also reported that the North has invited the two officials.

Pyongyang has long sought direct negotiations with Washington about its nuclear program and other issues, hoping to boost its international profile. The U.S. has said it is willing to talk bilaterally to Pyongyang, but only within the framework of six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan.

"We are sticking to our existing position that we will continue faithfully carrying out U.N. resolutions while urging North Korea to return to six-party talks," Seoul's Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said regarding talks over the weekend between Bosworth and South Korean officials.

Pyongyang has long sought direct negotiations with Washington about its nuclear program and other issues, hoping to boost its international profile. The U.S. has said it is willing to talk bilaterally to Pyongyang, but only within the framework of six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan.

"We are sticking to our existing position that we will continue faithfully carrying out U.N. resolutions while urging North Korea to return to six-party talks," Seoul's Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young said regarding talks over the weekend between Bosworth and South Korean officials.

Washington has been keeping up pressure on Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear programs, sending a senior official to Asia to seek support for stringent implementation of the U.N. sanctions meant to punish the North for its May 25 nuclear test.

Separately, South Korea launched its first space rocket Tuesday in its quest to become a regional space power, along with China, Japan and India. North Korea has warned it would be "watching closely" for the international response to the launch after its own launch in April - suspected as a disguised test of long-range missile technology - drew a rebuke from the United Nations.

Over the past year, North Korea stoked tensions with nuclear and missile tests while boycotting international nuclear talks. But in recent weeks, the North has become markedly more conciliatory.

The North freed two American journalists following a trip to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton earlier this month. It also released a South Korean worker it held for more than four months, agreed to lift restrictions on border crossings with the South, and pledged to resume suspended joint inter-Korean projects and reunions of families separated during the Korean War over five decades ago.

South Korea's Unification Ministry said Tuesday the recently released worker was forced to admit to some false allegations during "coercive" questioning in North Korea.

Also Tuesday, Pyongyang accepted a South Korean offer to hold Red Cross talks from Wednesday to Friday to organize a new round of reunions of separated families, Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said. The North also restored a direct telephone line via the border village of Panmunjom, he said.

North Korea has long balanced stoking tensions with conciliatory overtures to extract concessions and head off sanctions.

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