SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has invited top envoys of President Barack Obama to visit the communist nation next month in what would be the first nuclear negotiations between the two countries under his presidency, a news report said today.
North Korea recently invited Stephen Bosworth, special envoy to North Korea, and chief nuclear negotiator Sung Kim to Pyongyang, and the U.S. government is strongly considering sending them to the North next month, Seoul's JoongAng Ilbo daily reported.
There was not immediate response to the report from U.S. officials. Calls by The Associated Press to the U.S. Embassy in Seoul went unanswered.
The Joong Ang report, citing an unidentified high-level diplomatic source in Washington, said the U.S. diplomats might be able to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il during the visit, considering Pyongyang's recent conciliatory attitude.
Yonhap news agency also reported that the North has invited the two officials and that the U.S. is reviewing the offer.
Such a trip would mark the first nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea under the Obama administration.
Over the past year, North Korea had been stoking tensions with nuclear and missile tests while boycotting international nuclear talks. But in recent weeks, it has become markedly more conciliatory toward the U.S. and South Korea.
The North freed two American journalists following a trip to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton earlier this month.
It has also released a South Korean worker it held for more than four months, agreed to lift restrictions on border crossings with the South, and pledged to resume suspended joint inter-Korean projects and reunions of families separated during the Korean War over five decades ago.
Pyongyang accepted a South Korean offer to hold Red Cross talks from Wednesday to Friday to organize a new round of reunions of separated families, Seoul's Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said. The North also restored a direct telephone line via the border village of Panmunjom, he said.
Pyongyang has long sought direction negotiations with Washington about its nuclear program and other issues, hoping to boost its international profile. The U.S. has said it is willing to talk bilaterally to Pyongyang, but only within the framework of the six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan.
"I would not say that we've seen really any progress toward our oft-stated goal and our clear position that we want to engage with North Korea to discuss this denuclearization issue in the six-party context," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said.