BEIJING (Reuters) - A U.S. religious activist taken captive by North Korea in December arrived in China on Saturday and will next fly back to the United States, an official with the U.S. embassy in Beijing said.
Robert Park's release clears an obstacle between North Korea and the United States, its main adversary, as pressure mounts on the reclusive communist state to end its year-long boycott of international nuclear disarmament-for-aid talks.
Park arrived in Beijing on a flight from North Korea in the morning and was bundled into a U.S. embassy car. He did not speak to reporters at the airport.
North Korea said on Friday it would release Park, who was arrested on Christmas Day for illegally entering the country in a journey he said was aimed at raising awareness about Pyongyang's human rights abuses.
He told Reuters in Seoul ahead of the crossing it was his duty as a Christian to make the trip and that he was carrying a letter calling on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to release those he holds in brutal political camps and to step down.
The North's official KCNA news agency said Park had confessed to illegally entering the state and that he had changed his mind about North Korea after receiving kind treatment there.
Separately, a senior Chinese Communist Party official will visit North Korea as early as Saturday in what appears to be a move to press Pyongyang to return to nuclear disarmament talks, South Korean media reported on Friday.
China, the destitute North's biggest benefactor, is seen as having the most influence on the reclusive state. Kim Jong-il told the Chinese premier in October he could return to the nuclear talks if conditions were right.
U.N. sanctions imposed after the North's nuclear test last year have dealt an economic blow, and a botched currency reform measure undertaken late last year deepened its financial woes.
Communist Party international affairs chief Wang Jiarui is due to make the visit, Yonhap news said citing diplomatic sources in Beijing and Seoul. The visit should take place Saturday or next week, it said.
Wang met leader Kim last year and received a denuclearization pledge.
(Writing by Jon Herskovitz in Seoul; Reporting by Tyra Dempster and Lucy Hornby in Beijing and Kim Yeon-hee in Seoul; Editing by Bill Tarrant)