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N.Korea invites US envoy for nuclear talks-reports
25 Aug 2009 00:29:17 GMT
 Source: Reuters
SEOUL, Aug 25 (Reuters) - North Korea has invited the U.S. official charged with managing relations with the reclusive state to visit next month for talks on its nuclear arms programme, South Korean media outlets reported on Tuesday.

If the reports are accurate, the North's invitation for Stephen Bosworth would mark another step in the communist state reaching out to the world after its broken economy was hit by U.N. sanctions for its nuclear test in May.

Bosworth would lead a delegation first travelling to South Korea, China and Japan to discuss stalled six-way disarmament-for-aid talks with the North before heading to Pyongyang, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported quoting a senior diplomatic source in Washington as saying.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency ran a similar report with a diplomatic source in Washington saying the North extended the invitation when former President Bill Clinton went to Pyongyang this month to win the release of two U.S. journalists imprisoned by the state for illegal entry.

If Bosworth does go, it would mark the first official bilateral talks between North Korea and the administration of President Barack Obama on the nuclear issue.

U.S. embassy officials in Seoul, where Bosworth was earlier this week, would not comment on the reports.

U.S. officials have said they are willing to hold direct talks with North Korea within the context of the six-country disarmament negotiations involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

The talks, hosted by the North's biggest benefactor China, broke down at the end of last year with Pyongyang now boycotting the discussions and saying it sees the format as dead.

North Korea, however, has made a series of conciliatory gestures in recent months to its U.S. and South Korean foes that include the talks with Clinton, sending its first envoys to the South in nearly two years and proposing the resumption of tourism and business projects with the South.

Philip Goldberg, the U.S. coordinator for the U.N. sanctions on North Korea, has been in Asia in recent days to seek support for the punishments aimed at stamping out the North's arms trade, which estimates say provide it with at least hundreds of millions of dollars a year. [ID:nSP383406]

Analysts said the rare conciliatory gestures from North Korea may indicate that sanctions could be squeezing the state and forcing it to seek funds for its depleted coffers. The North's vital agriculture sector has also taken a blow this year by flooding that hurt farmland. [ID:nSEO356811] (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Christine Kim; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)


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