Nuclear power N.Korea to invite Rice to Pyongyang soon to test US willingness to normalize relations

http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2007/June/theworld_June679.xml§ion=theworld

US envoy reports “good” N. Korea nuke talks
(AFP)

22 June 2007



SEOUL - US envoy Christopher Hill said Friday he had held a “very good discussion” with North Korean officials on a surprise visit to the communist state to press for swift action on nuclear disarmament.

Hill, the most senior US official to visit the North in nearly five years, was speaking at Pyongyang airport before boarding a plane for South Korea and onward to Japan. snip

The inspectors, who were kicked out of North Korea in late 2002, were sent the invitation last weekend, but an embassy official in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, threw some doubt over the exact date. snip

That deal was hammered out by a six-nation forum grouping the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, and followed a surge in tensions after the North carried out its first nuclear weapons test last October. snip

Nam Sung-Wook, a professor at Korea University and expert on North Korea, predicted the regime would now soon invite US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to visit.

“Pyongyang wants to test and confirm US willingness to normalise relations with North Korea,” he said.