U.S. envoy hopes for N Korea visit

Jack Pritchard (left) told South Korean officials he could visit Pyongyang as early as next month

SEOUL, South Korea -- The U.S. special envoy on Korean affairs has arrived in Seoul to lay the groundwork for a visit to communist North Korea he says he hopes will take place soon.

Jack Pritchard's visit to the Korean peninsula comes amid growing signs that the isolated North Korean leadership wants to revive talks with the United States, which have been stalled for more than a year.

Shortly after his arrival he met with South Korean presidential advisor Lim Dong-won who returned from the North last weekend saying Pyongyang was ready to resume a dialogue with the U.S.

Praising Lim's visit as "extraordinarily successful" Pritchard told reporters he was planning to meet with North Korean officials in New York next week to set a date for him to travel to the North.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted the U.S. envoy as saying he hoped the visit would take place as early as next month.

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However, a statement released by the North Korean foreign ministry shortly after Pritchard's arrival in Seoul indicates Pyongyang continues to have concerns over U.S. preconditions attached to any talks.

The statement, released through the official KCNA news agency, said Pyongyang feels that the proper "environment has not yet been created" for talks to resume.

It added that Pyongyang would be willing to resume contact if Washington let North Korea "have the dialogue on an equal footing."

First contact

Washington insists that any meeting must address North Korea's weapons development programs and its massive deployment of forces along the border with South Korea.

The U.S. is worried about the North's weapons program

North Korea has said such conditions are unacceptable.

A visit by Pritchard to Pyongyang would be the first substantive diplomatic contact between the U.S. and North Korea since President Bush took office in January last year.

Bush's approach to North Korea has been markedly different to that of the Clinton administration which followed a policy of high-level engagement with the leadership in Pyongyang.

Relations plummeted further in the wake of Bush's labeling of North Korea as part of an "axis of exil."

On Tuesday former U.S. ambassador to Seoul Donald Gregg returned from an unofficial visit to the North saying officials there were keen to revive talks with the U.S.

He said there was "a lot of nostalgia in the North for the Clinton administration", but added "they have come to grips with the fact that they are now dealing with a nation at war" -- referring to changed U.S. attitudes in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

South Korean officials say the prolonged famine in the North has been a key motivating factor in Pyongyang's push to ending its self-imposed isolation.