UN envoy arrives in North Korea to spur nuke talks

In this photo released by Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service in Tokyo, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, right, meets with senior Chinese Communist Party envoy Wang Jiarui, unseen, in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Monday, Feb. 8, 2010. Wang was in North Korea on a mission to persuade the reclusive state to rejoin nuclear disarmament talks, reports said. Sitting at left is Kim Yong Il, international department director of the Workers' Party of Korea. (AP Photo/Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service)

SEOUL, South Korea – A senior U.N. envoy pressed ahead Wednesday with international efforts to get North Korea back into nuclear disarmament talks, during the world body’s first high-level visit to the reclusive state in nearly six years.

U.N. political chief B. Lynn Pascoe was greeted Tuesday by North Korean officials at an airport on the outskirts of the capital Pyongyang, according to footage broadcast by APTN in Pyongyang. Also Tuesday, North Korea’s top nuclear envoy, Kim Kye Gwan, flew to Beijing to discuss nuclear talks with Chinese officials.

A day earlier, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il renewed his country’s commitment to a nuclear-free Korean peninsula during a meeting with a visiting senior envoy from China.

The flurry of diplomacy heightened speculation that there could be a breakthrough to jump-start the stalled talks to rid Pyongyang of its nuclear programs.

“This is a sign that the resumption of the six-party talks is imminent,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “Kim Kye Gwan is expected to tell Chinese officials about North Korea’s disarmament plan in a more concrete manner” — probably in return for aid from Beijing, he said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters Tuesday that the United States supported talks between North Korea and China and hoped that the contact would lead to a resumption of the nuclear disarmament talks.

He said North Korea seemed to be saying the right things recently but added: “The right words must be followed by action. Words by themselves are not sufficient.”

Crowley said he expected that that tough message would be delivered by the Chinese to the No