U.S. experts to visit Pyongyang before envoy arrives: Yonhap

The trip comes as Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special representative for North Korean policy, is scheduled to visit the communist state on December 8 in order to persuade it to return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks.

Korea Economic Institute (KEI) president Jack Pritchard, director of KEI research and academic affairs Nicole Finneman, and Scott Snyder, director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation, will stay in Pyongyang until Tuesday, Yonhap news agency said, quoting diplomatic sources.

“Their trip to North Korea is being made after consultations with the U.S. government,” the source told Yonhap.

“They are likely to meet with key North Korean officials concerned with the U.S. and the country's nuclear weapons program,” the source said, adding they will brief the U.S. government on the result.

North Korea quit the six-party talks in April, a month before it tested a second atomic weapon. Its leader Kim Jong Il said last month he was ready to return to the talks, but only if bilateral discussions with the United States are satisfactory.

The six-nation talks, which began more than six years ago, group the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.

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