SEOUL — North Korea and the United States agreed to organize President Bill Clinton’s trip to Pyongyang to accelerate the process of normalizing bilateral ties between the two countries, according to a joint U.S.-North Korea communique reported by North Korea’s state media Oct. 12.
To lay the groundwork for Clinton’s historic trip, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will first visit North Korea in the near future, it said. A Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry official forecast that her visit to the North Korean capital is “a matter of weeks.”
“Secretary of State Madeleine Albright agreed to visit the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the near future to directly convey President Bill Clinton’s opinions to Chairman Kim Jong-il of the DPRK National Defense Commission and prepare for the U.S. president’s trip,” the communique reads.
With regard to when Clinton would visit Pyongyang, the ministry official stressed that the two sides should first produce a wide range of agreements on pending issues, including the North’s missile program, during Albright’s trip.
The statement followed two days of talks in Washington between North Korean envoy Jo Myong-nok, first deputy chairman of the National Defense Commission, and top U.S. officials, including Secretary Albright and Defense Secretary William Cohen. Jo also paid a courtesy call on President Clinton to deliver Chairman Kim’s letter to him.
Wrapping up a four-day stay in the United States from Oct. 9, the North Korean delegation left Washington, Oct. 12.
However, the joint communique failed to mention whether Washington would drop Pyongyang from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and deliberate on the exchange of diplomatic representatives.
Citing the joint statement issued on Oct. 6, the two sides only agreed to support international efforts to oppose terrorism.
Officials here view that, prior to Albright’s trip to Pyongyang, North Korea is likely to deport Japanese Red Army terrorists, which is the last condition for the U.S. removal of North Korea from the terrorist list. Then, Albright might bring a “gift” to Pyongyang by announcing that North Korea would be taken off the terrorist list.
With regard to diplomatic representation, the two sides noted that it would be beneficial to maintain diplomatic contacts through bilateral and multilateral channels, reaffirming the principle of non-interference in each other’s sovereignty.
The two sides agreed to work towards finding ways to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War armistice pact with a peace treaty, it said. In this regard, four-party peace talks are one of the viable means to replace the Korean Armistice Agreement, signed after the war, with “stable structures to guarantee peace.” First convened in 1997, the four-party talks, involving the two Koreas, the United States and China, have remained suspended for more than a year.