UN political Chief to visit N Korea

UN: The top UN political official will travel to North Korea next month for wide-ranging talks with North which locked in a nuclear dispute with the West, the United Nations announced on Sunday.

The world body said that Lynn Pascoe, under-secretary-general for political affairs, would visit North Korea Feb. 9-12 to discuss “all issues of mutual interest and concern in a comprehensive manner.” Pascoe, who will travel as special envoy of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is a former US ambassador to Indonesia and the most senior UN official in six years to visit North Korea.

Also in Pascoe’s party of four will be Ban’s deputy chief of staff Kim Won-soo, who like the secretary-general is South Korean, U.N. officials said. The group will also visit China, Japan and South Korea, the UN statement said. Those three countries, along with the United States, Russia and North Korea itself, form a six-party group that discusses ending Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program in return for aid to the impoverished state. The United Nations is not involved in the talks but supports them.

Pyongyang has boycotted the talks for the past year, and as a price for returning to the table has demanded talks with the United States to reach a peace treaty to replace the armistice that halted hostilities in the 1950-53 Korean War.

Washington says a treaty is only possible when the North ends its atomic ambitions.

U.S.-led United Nations forces signed the armistice at the end of the Korean War with North Korea and China.

A peace treaty would allow North Korea to tap international financial institutions for aid.

United Nations, Monday, Reuters