U.N. Chief Sets N. Korea Visit on A-Arms Dispute

U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali announced Wednesday that he will visit Pyongyang later this month in a new effort to resolve the diplomatic stalemate over North Korea’s nuclear program.

Boutros-Ghali’s trip will come just as time is running out for North Korea to comply with International Atomic Energy Agency requirements to open its nuclear facilities to outside inspections. If North Korea does not agree to inspections by the end of this month, U.S. officials have said, the Pyongyang regime may face international economic sanctions.

Selig Harrison, a North Korea specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Wednesday that the secretary general’s trip “can’t hurt, and it can help” in settling the nuclear dispute.

But the U.N. announcement was greeted coolly by the Clinton Administration, which has been conducting its own talks with North Korea.

“Certainly, Boutros-Ghali is free to travel to any country at any time,” said State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelly. Asked whether the secretary general’s trip could be helpful in resolving the nuclear dispute, Shelly said: “I’m just not going to speculate on that.”

Last week, North Korea came forward with a new offer to permit inspections of some of its nuclear installations. However, the proposal does not include inspections of the main nuclear and reprocessing facilities at Yongbyon, and it does not meet IAEA requirements.

In recent days, the Clinton Administration has been quietly discussing the North Korean proposal with its allies South Korea and Japan. On Wednesday, the President adopted a somber and somewhat pessimistic tone when discussing North Korea with a group of journalists.

Asked whether the nuclear dispute is likely to deteriorate into a crisis, the President replied, “I hope we can avoid one, but I’m not sure we can.

“We would like to do it (resolve the nuclear controversy) through negotiations, if the North Koreans are serious. . . ,” Clinton added. “If not, we will have to consider other avenues in consultation with our allies.”

Boutros-Ghali is scheduled to visit Japan in about 10 days on a trip that was previously planned. His aides said that he will visit North Korea and South Korea soon afterward.

Alvaro de Soto, a senior U.N. political adviser, told reporters that the secretary general does not now plan to play a direct role in nuclear issues, but he quickly added: “Of course, as you can readily imagine, this will be on the agenda of the talks (in North Korea). It could hardly be otherwise.”

The nuclear dispute arose early this year when international inspectors sought the right to make special inspections of two sites that North Korea has not declared on its lists of nuclear facilities.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and U.S. officials believe that these two sites are used for disposal of nuclear wastes and that inspections of them would show the extent to which North Korea has produced plutonium for possible use in nuclear bombs.