UN envoy in DPR of Korea for talks on nuclear programme

A United Nations envoy is in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) this week to support six-way talks on the country's nuclear programme and any other problems in the Korean Peninsula, a UN spokesman said today.

Maurice F. Strong, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Personal Envoy, will be in the DPRK through Saturday. While in the capital Pyongyang, Mr. Strong will discuss with the Government possible ways in which the Secretary-General might be of further help in the six-nation talks, as well as humanitarian and economic aspects of this situation, spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Russian Federation and United States have been engaged in discussions with the DPRK since Pyongyang announced at the end of 2002 that it planned to "lift the freeze" on its nuclear facilities and later that it was pulling out of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).