http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051014/ts_nm/korea_north_usa_dc_1
New Mexico Gov Bill Richardson to visit North Korea Thu Oct 13,11:32 PM ET
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson will soon visit North Korea as preparations intensify for what could be a crucial round of six-country talks on reining in Pyongyang's nuclear program, current and former U.S. officials said on Thursday.
Richardson, a Democrat who served as energy secretary and U.N. ambassador under President Bill Clinton and is mentioned as a possible contender for his party's 2008 presidential nomination, is expected to make the trip "very soon," a former official told Reuters.
The trip has been under discussion for some time and has privately drawn mixed reactions from U.S. officials and experts. Only recently has Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator with the North, agreed that Richardson could make the journey, several U.S. sources said.
Richardson, who had been invited by the North Koreans and has maintained contacts with them for some years, "asked Chris Hill to go. He wanted to go. Chris Hill finally obliged him," the former official said.
Richardson discussed the trip in an interview with the New York Times, which reported that he would make the journey next week. "I am not an official envoy, but I am supportive of the administration's new policy to engage the North Koreans through dialogue and diplomacy," Richardson told the newspaper.
A State Department official, who spoke on background, said Richardson would not carry a special message to the North Koreans from the Bush administration nor would his talks be considered part of the official U.S. negotiations with Pyongyang.
But Richardson, as a former cabinet official, is being accorded the privilege of using a U.S. government plane so the trips could be seen as implicitly approved by the Washington.
Officials said he would be expected to reinforce the firm U.S. position that Pyongyang must dismantle both its uranium-based and plutonium-based nuclear programs.
After more than a year of stalemate, the most recent round of six-country talks in Beijing ended last month with an agreement in principle that the North would give up its nuclear programs in return for political and economic incentives.
The talks are to resume in November but the sides are far apart on when Pyongyang must dismantle its nuclear weapons programs, how the agreement might be verified and whether there are any circumstances under which the North would be allowed to have a nuclear program for peaceful energy purposes, officials and experts said.
Hill has dropped hints that he was considering visiting Pyongyang ahead of the next negotiating round. But officials and experts were divided on whether that might happen.
One U.S. source said he understood the North had put conditions on Hill's visit, namely that the United States agree to the peaceful nuclear energy program.
Some experts, who spoke on condition of anonymity, were cool to Richardson's trip, saying he was indulging his presidential ambitions and could bring little substantive to the debate because he was not an official negotiator.
It is Hill, with the authority of President George W. Bush behind him, who needs to visit Pyongyang in order to advance a negotiated deal, they said.
But others argued the administration, which is much distrusted by Pyongyang, has little to lose in allowing Richardson to mediate. They said Richardson is "someone they trust" and may be able to better communicate U.S. concerns.
The top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican John Warner of Virginia and Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, were planning to visit the North soon but that trip has been delayed, several U.S. officials said.
