Envoys go to North Korea for nuclear talks push
SEOUL (Reuters) - A senior Chinese official was in North Korea on Monday and a top U.N. political envoy was slated to arrive a day later in a new push to have the reclusive state return to stalled nuclear disarmament talks.
The high-profile engagement this week with the North may bode well for reviving the six-country nuclear talks that North Korea has boycotted for a year, and could lead to a reduction of tensions on the troubled peninsula, analysts said.
The destitute North is under pressure to return to the nuclear talks, where it can win aid to prop up its broken economy, due to U.N. sanctions imposed after its nuclear test in May 2009 and a botched currency revaluation that sparked inflation and rare civil unrest.
Chinese Communist Party international affairs chief Wang Jiarui flew to North Korea at the weekend. Wang met Kim Jong-il last year, and received a denuclearisation pledge from the North Korean leader.
On Monday, Wang met Choe Thae-bok, a high-ranking North Korean ruling party official, China's Xinhua news agency reported. Wang is expected to stay until Tuesday and have discussions with Kim Jong-il, the South's Yonhap news agency quoted sources as saying.
Following him, Lynn Pascoe, UN under-secretary-general for political affairs, would visit North Korea from Tuesday through Friday to discuss what he said would be "a wide array of issues."
China, the destitute North's biggest benefactor, is seen as having the most influence on the reclusive state.
Analysts said there is a chance the North could launch military moves if the nuclear talks do not go well. Market players have said this would dampen sentiment and serve as a reminder of the dangers of investing in the troubled peninsula.
TOURISM TALKS SPUTTER
In a sign of the difficulties that lie ahead, the two Koreas made little progress on Monday in a separate round of talks aimed at resumption of tourism projects. The projects in the North run by an affiliate of the South's Hyundai group were suspended more than a year ago due to political tension.
"The talks ended without any special agreements," a South Korean Unification Ministry official said after the two sides met in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.
The tours to a mountain resort and an ancient capital once earned the North's leaders tens of millions of dollars a year and Kim Jong-il has appealed to have them restarted.
A few hours after the discussions began, North Korea's official media ran a report where it quoted state security officials as saying the country was ready to strike those in the South who were plotting to overthrow Pyongyang's leaders.
"There is no room for the group of traitors to stay in Korea and on the earth as they bring harm to the country with their back turned on the nation," the North's media report said.
North Korea in recent weeks has been reaching out to South Korea, which once was a major aid donor, but also threatening its neighbour and U.S. military ally by firing artillery near its neighbour.
In a move seen as bettering the mood with the United States, the North's most important dialogue partner in the nuclear talks that also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, Pyongyang at the weekend released a U.S. missionary it had held since late December for illegally entering the country.
(Additional reporting by Christine Kim; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)