Hill, an assistant secretary of state, arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday in the highest-level U.S. visit to the North Korean capital in more than four years. He is chief envoy to six-party talks involving North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. aimed at securing North Korea's denuclearization in exchange for economic and energy aid for the impoverished state.

"We had a good discussion about the way forward at the six-party talks," Hill said in footage shot by APTN in Pyongyang before his departure.

Hill avoided providing specifics, but said that "we discussed all aspects of the six-party process. And all aspects means all aspects."

He said he held meetings with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, as well as the country's foreign minister, Pak Ui Chun.

The U.S. official departed from Pyongyang at about 11:15 a.m. local time (0215 GMT), APTN reported.

Hill's visit came amid hopes North Korea was on the verge of taking concrete steps to carry out its commitment to shut down its bomb-making nuclear reactor.

The Bush administration initially preferred to meet the North with regional powers like China and Japan at the talks. But the U.S. 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 visit, coming before North Korea makes good on its promise to shut down its nuclear reactor, appeared to demonstrate how much the Bush administration wants to achieve a breakthrough in the effort to dismantle the Pyongyang regime's atomic weapons program.

The official Korean Central News Agency reported Hill's arrival in a terse, one-line dispatch. State television did not mention the trip on its evening broadcast.

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.

U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. promised to free US$25 million (€18.7 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 U.N. 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.

Subscribe to The China Post and save.  Click hereSharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 800 characters max

Receive China Post promos

Respond to this email