North Korea - U.S. congressmen arrive in Pyongyang amid stalled six-party talks

Yonhap News Agency (South Korea) ^ | August 30, 2005

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SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Yonhap) -- A delegation of U.S. congressmen arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday, North Korea's state-run media said, for a visit expected to focus on ways of resuming the six-party talks on the North's nuclear weapons program.

"A delegation from the U.S. Congress headed by James Leach, chairman of the Subcommittee on Asian and the Pacific Affairs of the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives, arrived here Tuesday," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

The delegation, which also includes Tom Lantos (D-California), will stay in Pyongyang for three days and then visit Seoul before returning to Washington.

The U.S. delegation is expected to meet high-level North Korean officials, including Kim Kye-gwan, the vice foreign minister and head delegate to the six-party talks. Their meetings are likely to focus on ways of narrowing differences between United States and the North to resolve the dispute over the latter's nuclear weapons program.

The U.S. congressmen arrived from Beijing as Thailand's Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon returned to the Chinese capital after talks in Pyongyang.

North Korea withdrew from its original agreement with other parties of the six-way talks to reopen them this week, but proposed to meet in the week of Sept. 12. Pyongyang cited as a stumbling block a joint military exercise between South Korea and Washington, which it accuses the U.S. of being an invasion ploy.

In a separate meeting Tuesday, the president of South Korea's television network MBC, Choi Mun-sun, meet with Kim Yong-nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly in Pyongyang, the KCNA said. Choi flew to Pyongyang on Saturday to discuss inter-Korean broadcasting exchanges.

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Tom Lantos (D-California) you'd think he would have had enough of the KZ's