U.S. Secretary of State Rice may visit N. Korea: report

SEOUL, Feb. 23 Kyodo

The United States and North Korea have agreed that the two countries will consider a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to North Korea once Pyongyang takes initial steps toward denuclearization, a Seoul daily reported Friday.

The agreement was reached at a meeting between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan in Berlin in January, the Kyunghyang Shinmun reported, quoting diplomatic sources in Beijing, Tokyo and Washington.

In the meeting, Hill and Kim agreed on Hill visiting North Korea and Kim making a trip to New York, and discussed Rice's trip to Pyongyang, the newspaper said.

Following the meeting, the chief delegates to the six-way talks over North Korea's nuclear programs, including Hill and Kim, met in Beijing earlier this month and clinched an agreement to resolve the nuclear impasse.

In the initial phase of the denuclearization process, North Korea will shut down and seal its Yongbyon nuclear complex, including a reprocessing facility, and accept International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors within 60 days.

Within the same timeframe, participating countries will start providing North Korea with energy equivalent to 50,000 tons of fuel oil once Pyongyang actually shuts down and seals the nuclear facilities.

The diplomatic sources said that the timing for Rice's visit to Pyongyang would be around the 60-day deadline for North Korea to take ''the initial step.''

On top of the 50,000 tons of fuel oil, energy aid equivalent to 950,000 tons of fuel oil will also be provided by China, Russia, South Korea and the United States in stages until North Korea completes the disabling of its nuclear facilities.

The six-way talks, aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear weapons program, groups the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

Yonhap News Agency, meanwhile, reported in a dispatch from Washington on Friday that Kim is likely to visit New York in early March to hold talks with Hill on follow-up measures to the agreement in the six-party talks.

''Kim is expected to visit New York early next week to take part in a working group meeting on normalizing U.S.-North Korea relations,'' Yonhap quoted a diplomatic source in Washington as saying. ''No date has been set for his visit, but it is likely to last from March 5 through 7,'' the source said.

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