U.S. Envoy Arrives in N. Korea for Talks

U.S. envoy William J. Perry arrived Tuesday in North Korea, hoping to meet the Communist country’s enigmatic ruler and persuade the government to abandon its suspected nuclear arms and missile programs.

Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan met Perry at the Pyongyang airport, the North’s official news agency said in a brief dispatch monitored in Seoul.

In meetings Monday in Tokyo, Perry and officials from Japan and South Korea agreed on a joint message to send to Pyongyang, but refused to reveal its contents.

South Korea Unification Minister Lim Dong Won said that Perry’s visit represented a “historic opportunity.”

“Perry will explain to the North the coordinated policy of the three nations and seek Pyongyang’s favorable responses to it,” Lim said. “Instead of trying to negotiate with the North Koreans, he will just listen to their views.”

Perry will carry a separate message from President Clinton to senior North Korean officials, and Washington hopes that he will be able to meet the country’s ruler, Kim Jong Il, a U.S. spokesman said.

Perry heads the highest-level U.S. delegation to travel to the secretive country during the rule of Kim Jong Il, the son of longtime ruler Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and congressional delegations have visited North Korea, but no one before Perry has made an official visit representing the U.S. president.

Perry is not likely to meet with the U.S. nuclear inspection team now in the North to take a look at an underground facility outside Pyongyang.

State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said in Washington on Monday that the team received “good cooperation” from North Korean officials.

Their findings will not be revealed until they have returned to the United States and briefed senior U.S. officials, Rubin said.

The United States has 37,000 soldiers stationed in South Korea.