国际新闻：US nuclear envoy wraps up surprise N.Korea visit

SEOUL, South Korea - US envoy Christopher Hill was wrapping up a surprise trip to North Korea on Friday, amid optimism that the visit heralds renewed progress in DPRK's denuclearization.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill (L) shakes hands with North Korea's US Affairs Department Director Li Gun upon his arrival at Pyongyang airport June 21, 2007. [Xinhua]

Hill, an assistant secretary of state, arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday in the highest-level US visit to the North Korean capital since 2002. Hill is Washington's chief envoy to international talks on North Korea's nuclear program.
He was to meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan and, possibly, other officials during the landmark visit, which came amid hopes North Korea was on the verge of taking concrete steps to carry out its commitment to shut doe its nuclear reactor.

"We want to get the six-party process moving," Hill said in footage shot by APTN in Pyongyang on Thursday. He was due to leave Pyongyang on Friday morning.

He referred to talks involving North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the US aimed at securing North Korea's denuclearization in exchange for economic and energy aid. 

The Bush administration initially preferred to meet the North with regional powers like China and Japan at the talks. But the US has been moving away from that limitation, holding meetings on the sidelines of summits and sending White House adviser Victor Cha to Pyongyang earlier this year. Hill's trip is the clearest indication yet of reaching out directly.

The official Korean Central News Agency reported Hill's arrival in a terse, one-line dispatch. 

In Washington, the State Department said Hill's trip signaled it was the "right moment to do the full range of face-to-face consultations" with North Korea and to talk about moving the stalled process forward.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack had no details on Hill's meetings.

US officials had previously rejected one-on-one diplomacy to avoid delivering North Korea a perk it sought, which indicates Hill's trip is a vote of confidence in Pyongyang's sincerity about keeping its promises under the six-nation deal.

The US and North Korea have been at odds since the 1950-53 Korean War and do not have formal diplomatic relations.

In February, North Korea committed itself to shut down its main nuclear fuel processing facility at Yongbyon, by mid-April after the US promised to free US$25 million in allegedly illicit North Korean funds.

Enough progress had been made by Saturday for North Korean state media to announce that the country had invited the UN nuclear watchdog agency to send inspectors for a visit next week to discuss details of the reactor shutdown.

North Korea, which carried out its first nuclear test explosion in October last year, expelled International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in 2002.

Despite promises by North Korea, the six-party process, which began in August 2003, has failed to achieve any concrete action by the country toward denuclearization.

Hill said this week that he hoped the six-nation talks could reconvene sometime after July 4. China, which sponsors the meetings, said Thursday that no date had been fixed.