N. Korea would welcome visit by Bush, Rice - Kyodo
Posted on: Saturday, 23 July 2005, 07:53 CDT
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.
Source: REUTERS
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