UNITED STATES: U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT LEAVES WASHINGTON FOR MISSION TO NORTH KOREA

Record ID: 222851

  • Title: UNITED STATES: U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT LEAVES WASHINGTON FOR MISSION TO NORTH KOREA
  • Date: 21st October 2000
  • Summary: ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, MARYLAND, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 21, 2000)(REUTERS-ACCESS ALL) (NIGHTS SHOTS) 1. ZOOM IN/ZOOM OUT: CAR PULLS UP ALONGSIDE PLANE/ US SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT WALKS UP STAIRS OF AIRCRAFT 0.50 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 5th November 2000 12:00
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  • Location: ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, MARYLAND, UNITED STATES
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVAEXD0MTGBBJ98L4SM0I2U9HR0N
  • Story Text: U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright left
    Washington for North Korea on Sunday on a mission across one
    of the last barriers left over from the Cold War of the late
    20th century.

    Just two weeks after a visit to Washington by North Korean
    number two Jo Myong-rok, Albright takes relations one step
    further when she meets North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, son of
    the founder of the Stalinist state, probably on Tuesday.



    Albright will be the first U.S. cabinet member ever to
    meet Kim, whose father Kim Il-sung closed the country to
    Western influence for close to half a century.

    The prizes she seeks are a reduction in tension on the
    Korean peninsula, where the United States has stationed troops
    since the end of the Korean War in 1953, and an end to North
    Korea's missile programmes, the main rationale behind missile
    defence plans which would cost Washington billions of dollars.

    In the short term, she wants the North Koreans to meet
    U.S. requirements for removal from a list of "state sponsors
    of terrorism" and find out more about Kim's proposal to give
    up missiles in exchange for foreign help with satellite
    launches.

    South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, winner of this year's
    Nobel peace prize, has laid the groundwork for bringing North
    Korea in from the cold with his "sunshine policy" of
    rapprochement and with a historic summit in Pyongyang in June.

    In return for cooperation with its former enemies, North
    Korea can expect more aid and investment for a economy which
    has fallen way beyond those of its East Asian neighbours and
    which failed to avert widespread famine in the late 1990s.

    If Albright's visit goes well, U.S. President Bill Clinton
    could visit North Korea before he leaves office in January. At
    some stage, Washington expects to open diplomatic relations.

    A presidential visit would have been unthinkable during
    the crisis of 1994, during Clinton's first term, when some
    U.S. politicians seriously recommended a preemptive strike to
    put an end to a North Korean nuclear weapons programme.

    The State Department said Albright would arrive in
    Pyongyang at 6.15 a.m. Monday (2115 Sunday GMT) and her first
    appointment will be a courtesy call on Vice Marshal Jo
    Myong-rok at the Kis Memorial Palace.

    She will visit a kindergarten and one of the places where
    the World Food Programme (WFP) distributes food to alleviate
    the shortages which began with floods in 1995.

    The United States has been the biggest single donor to the
    WFP's programme in North Korea, which has probably saved
    millions of lives. It has sent 1.2 million tonnes of food
    worth more than $425 million, about 67 percent of the total.

    She will then see Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun, whom she
    met for the first time in Bangkok earlier this year, and
    President Kim Yong-nam, the nominal head of state.

    She will have formal talks with Vice Marshal Jo, who has
    invited the U.S. delegation to dinner on Monday.

    She has only three engagements on Tuesday at this stage,
    and the State Department did not give a time for her meeting
    with Kim Jong-il, the highlight of her trip.

    On Wednesday she flies to Seoul to see President Kim
    Dae-jung and hold coordination talks with the foreign
    ministers of Japan and South Korea, Washington's East Asian
    allies.

    Albright will take about 40 people on her own plane, as on
    most of her foreign trips, but because of the high level of
    interest, the United States has persuaded the North Koreans to
    arrange a press charter flight from Beijing with 50 seats.

    Analysts say the visit could be the most important of
    Albright's four years as secretary of state.


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