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The Bush administration is disassociating itself from two U.S. delegations heading for North Korea next week for insights into the communist state's nuclear facility.
A White House spokesperson made it clear neither delegation was endorsed by the U.S. government and that the nuclear issue should be addressed through six-nation talks that began in August last year.
The planned visits to the communist North by two U.S. groups come at a critical time in the nuclear impasse as diplomatic efforts continue among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. to restart multilateral talks.
One is a group comprised of academics and nuclear scientist Sig Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The other is a congressional delegation made up of East Asia experts, including Keith Luse, an aide to Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Richard Lugar, and Frank Jannuzi, who works for the ranking Democrat of the panel, Senator Joseph Biden.
But White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan made it clear that neither delegation would be acting on the U.S. government.
A State Department spokesman also said that the administration neither facilitated nor opposed the forthcoming trips and stated any efforts that complicate moves to reconvene six-party talks would not be helpful.
Though these two teams have been dealing with Pyeongyang as separate groups, reports indicate they are likely to be in the communist state in the same time frame and may be grouped together for a proposed tour of the nuclear power plant in Yongbyeon.
As publicity mounts over the first foreign access to Yongbyeon in more than a year, the AFP reported, it was still unclear whether the U.S. delegates would be allowed to visit the nuclear facility, citing a member of the delegation.
Arirang TV
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