Senior N. Korean diplomat heads to U.S. for rare talks

SEOUL, July 26 (Yonhap) -- A senior North Korean diplomat headed to the United States on Tuesday for rare talks with U.S. officials, a diplomatic source in Seoul said, amid cautious hopes for the resumption of stalled six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear programs.
Kim Kye-gwan, the North's first vice foreign minister and one of the key strategists in Pyongyang's nuclear talks with Washington, left Beijing on Tuesday morning and was due to arrive in New York for meetings with U.S. diplomats, the source said on the condition of anonymity.



Kim was scheduled to meet with Stephen Bosworth, Washington's top envoy on North Korea, during his visit, according to the source.
The U.S. visit was his first since March 2007 and his meeting with Bosworth is also his first since December 2009, when the senior U.S. diplomat visited Pyongyang.
Kim's visit to the U.S. comes days after the nuclear envoys of South Korea and North Korea met on the sidelines of an Asian security conference in Bali last week and agreed to make joint efforts to swiftly resume the six-party talks.
The surprise meeting between Wi Sung-lac of South Korea and his newly appointed North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong-ho, provided a ray of hope for the future of the deadlocked six-party talks that also involve the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.
Efforts to reopen the six-party talks, dormant since December 2008, have been complicated by the North's deadly military attacks on the South last year and its self-confessed uranium enrichment program.
The inter-Korean dialogue in Bali was the fulfillment of the first of a three-stage approach being promoted by South Korea and its allies to reopen the six-party forum. The approach also calls for a direct U.S.-North Korea dialogue.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday that the North's first vice foreign minister Kim would visit New York this week for "exploratory talks" on potential resumption of stalled six-party negotiations.