N. Korea would welcome visit by Bush, Rice – Kyodo
TOKYO (Reuters) – North Korea has told the United States it
would welcome a visit by President Bush or Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice to help normalize ties, Japan’s Kyodo news
agency said on Saturday.
Kyodo, quoting diplomatic sources in Beijing, said the
message had been conveyed through contacts between the
negotiators of the two countries in talks in New York from late
June to early July.
Those meetings were attended by Joseph DeTrani, the U.S.
special envoy for North Korean negotiations, and Ri Gun, chief
of the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s U.S. Affairs Department.
The report comes ahead of six-party talks on North Korea’s
nuclear program next week.
The North Korean officials also said that Pyongyang would
be ready to receive former U.S. President Bush, Kyodo quoted
the sources as saying.
The U.S. representatives told the North Koreans that
Pyongyang should also send senior officials to the United
States, but the talks were inconclusive after North Korea
expressed doubts about whether the U.S. would issue visas for a
North Korean delegation, Kyodo said.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter visited the reclusive
communist state in 1994 to help resolve an earlier nuclear
crisis by meeting with the late Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s
leader at the time and father of current leader Kim Jong-il.
Senior delegates from the United States, the two Koreas,
China, Japan and Russia will meet in Beijing from Tuesday for
talks on a nuclear crisis which emerged in 2002 after the
United States said Pyongyang had admitted to secretly pursuing
a nuclear arms program in violation of the 1994 agreement.
The Korean nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when U.S.
officials said North Korea had admitted to a uranium enrichment
program. Tensions rose in February this year when North Korea
declared it had nuclear weapons.
The regional powers hope to persuade North Korea to
dismantle its nuclear weapons programs in exchange for security
guarantees and economic assistance.