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SEOUL, South Korea: A high-level US delegation led by
former UN ambassador Bill Richardson was due in North Korea on
Sunday, days ahead of a key deadline under a six-party deal to
dismantle Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
The bipartisan team—on a
mission to recover the remains of US soldiers killed in the Korean
War—was to arrive in the North Korean capital aboard a US military
aircraft, US embassy and military officials in Seoul said.
The White House has said that the
trip by Richardson, who is accompanied by National Security Council
Director for Asia Victor Cha among others, is “separate” from
the six-party talks on ending Pyongyang’s nuclear drive.
But the four-day trip comes as
North Korea is soon due to make good on its pledge to shut down its
key nuclear facility in Yongbyon and allow the return of UN nuclear
inspectors in return for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil. The pledge
is part of an aid-for-disarmament deal reached on February 13 by the
United States, China, the two Koreas, Russia and Japan. Pyongyang
had 60 days from that date to fulfil its promises.
The United States said Friday
that a major obstacle to the continuation of the six-party process
had likely been overcome, with a mechanism found to unblock $25
million in frozen North Korean funds.
The delay in the return of the
allegedly illicit funds has stalled the six-nation negotiations, as
North Korea has refused to return to the talks or meet its promises
until the money is returned.
Authorities in the Chinese
territory of Macau froze the funds in September 2005 after
Washington accused Banco Delta Asia of handling what it said were
assets linked to money laundering, drug trafficking and counterfeit
currency.
US State Department spokesman
Sean McCormack said Friday that Washington had identified “the
technical pathway by which these funds may be returned” from the
Macau bank to Pyongyang.
But Seoul’s Yonhap news agency,
quoting an unnamed source close to the six-party talks Sunday,
downplayed the announcement.
“Basically, nothing has
changed,” the source said, adding the banking dispute was still
hampering the six-party process with no real breakthrough yet.
The six-nation talks were
launched in 2003 aimed at ending the North’s nuclear weapons
ambitions. After testing several missiles in July, Pyongyang shocked
the world with its first atomic weapons test in October.
US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill
was to leave Washington on Sunday for Tokyo and later head to Seoul
and Beijing to discuss a “timeline” for the second phase of
North Korea’s denuclearization program, McCormack said.
The delegation led by Richardson,
the governor of New Mexico and a 2008 Democratic presidential
hopeful, will on Wednesday visit the inter-Korean border village of
Panmunjom, where the soldiers’ remains are to be transferred.
The US team will then cross the
border and head for a US army garrison in South Korea for a formal
repatriation ceremony on Thursday.
More than 33,000 US troops died
in the Korean War from 1950-53, and about 8,100 are listed as
missing.
“Our objective is to try to see
if we can get some remains of the very proud and honorable
servicemen that perished in the Korean War,” Richardson said
before leaving for Pyongyang.
“So if we get some remains
back, it’s a sign of progress in the relationship.”
The New Mexico governor, who has
been to North Korea five times, has had experience negotiating the
release of hostages, US servicemen and political prisoners in North
Korea, Iraq and Cuba.
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