US Envoy to Travel to DPRK - Senior US Official

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, April 30, 2002

US Envoy to Travel to DPRK - Senior US Official

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A US envoy is to travel to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in a bid to break the stalemate on contacts between Washington and its Cold War rival since US President George W. Bush entered the White House, a senior US official said Monday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it had not yet been decided exactly when the envoy, Jack Pritchard, would visit Pyongyang.

But the move will be greeted as the first sign of an easing of the crisis in DPRK-US relations, which erupted when Bush took office warning that he did not trust DPRK leader Kim Jong Il.

Close US allies Japan and South Korea were to be informed of the proposed mission on Monday, the official said.

Bush has repeatedly voiced suspicion of DPRK, and included it in his "axis of evil" along with Iran and Iraq during his State of the Union speech earlier this year, accusing Pyongyang of exporting technology used in weapons of mass destruction.

Speculation has mounted that the US-DPRK freeze could be easing since South Korean envoy, Lim Dong-Won, visited the North earlier this month.

DPRK leader Kim reportedly told Lim he would welcome a visit from Pritchard.

Secretary of State Colin Powell signalled that a move on the North talks was likely last week, when he told a congressional committee that Washington would follow up on signs that Pyongyang's position might be easing.

"There is a little movement there," said a senior State Department official said Monday on condition of anonymity.

The standoff between the United States and DPRK is one of the few remaining unresolved conflicts of the Cold War.

Any long-term reduction of Korean peninsular tensions would benefit the United States, which has 37,000 troops on hair trigger alert on the South Korean side of the border.

Source: Agencies

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