UN Secretary-General to Pyongyang?

Yonhap news agency reported that the South Korean secretary-general Ban Ki-moon would visit North Korea to help set the stage for addressing a set of North Korea issues including its nuclear program.

Should he go to Pyongyang, it would be the first visit by an incumbent U.N. leader in 22 years. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who headed the U.N. from 1992-96, visited Pyongyang in 1993, while Kurt Waldheim, who led the U.N. from 1972-81, visited the North in 1979.

Ban planned to visit the inter-Korean industrial complex in the North’s border city of Gaeseong in May. But Pyongyang abruptly canceled his visit without elaborating on the reasons for the rejection. Observers say Ban’s remarks against Pyongyang’s potential launch of a rocket might have angered the North.

Analysts said that if Pyongyang has accepted Ban’s visit, it might want to use the U.N. to ease international pressure over its woeful human rights record, and nuclear and missile programs.

[Korea Herald]

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