20000201

High-level talks

between N Korea,

US due in March

MOSCOW: Accelerating an improvement in relations, North Korea will send a senior official to Washington in March for high-level talks with the Clinton administration, the State Department said.

The visit is designed to match talks former Defense Secretary William Perry held in Pyongyang last year as a special Clinton administration emissary.

North Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister, Kim Gye Gwan, and US envoy Charles Kartman reached agreement for the North Korean visit during talks in Berlin that ended on Friday.

The two sides will work out the details next month in New York, the State Department spokesman James P Rubin added on Sunday in an annnouncement made aboard Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's plane as she flew from Switzerland to Russia.

Administration officials said there was no decision yet on who the North Korean government would send to Washington.

The agreement is another step in US efforts to coax North Korea out of its isolation and to neutralize its nuclear weapons programme.

In 1994, North Korea agreed to shelve its nuclear weapons programme in exhange for energy supplies from the United States, Japan and South Korea, and has agreed to stop missile tests so long as discussions on a better relationship continue.

The United States reciprocated by suspending some economic sanctions, but North Korea is still listed by the State Department as a sponsor of terrorism. This has the effect of prohibiting virtually all but humanitarian aid to Pyongyang.

Likely topics of discussion at the March talks are ongoing diplomatic efforts to officially end the Korean war, missile arsenals and terrorism.ÑAP