By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
A high-ranking North Korean official has proposed that former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger visit the North and the former secretary of state has expressed his willingness to take up the offer if two conditions are met, a governing Grand National Party lawmaker said Friday.
``We were told that Ri Kun, North Korean foreign ministry director for the North American bureau, met Kissinger last month, asking him to visit Pyongyang,'' Rep. Chung Mong-joon told Korean reporters based in Washington D.C.
Chung and three other GNP lawmakers are visiting the U.S. capital to meet think tank and foreign policy experts, including Kissinger, Harvard University Professor Joseph S. Nye Jr., and Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs.
As for the North's offer, Kissinger was quoted as answering that he would visit Pyongyang if two conditions were met: a U.S. president officially asks him to do so as an envoy, and the North pledges to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs.
Foreign policy experts have speculated that U.S. President-elect Barack Obama may send a special envoy to the North in an effort to make progress in resolving the nuclear issue.
The speculation has arisen, because on several occasions, Obama pledged during his campaign that he may be willing to sit down face-to-face with leaders such as North Korea's Kim Jong-il if that is what it takes to resolve the continuing nuclear standoff.
A left-of-center Washington-based think tank, the Center for American Progress (CAP), recommended the new U.S. President dispatch a special envoy after he is sworn in.
``During the first 100 days of the new administration, the President should send a special envoy to Pyongyang to deliver a simple message,'' CAP said in a policy recommendation report titled ``Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President.''
The report also stated that ``the envoy should make it clear that the efforts of the Bush administration in 2008 to resolve the standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons program through the six-party talks, as well as the direct bilateral talks the outgoing administration finally engaged in are still on track.''
Foreign policy experts forecast that Kissinger, former US Defense Secretary William Perry, and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright are possible candidates likely to be called upon to do the job.
Earlier reports said that the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, a non-profit organization aimed at resolving conflicts that pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests, planned to propose the dispatch of Kissinger and Perry to Pyongyang within a few months after the new U.S. government takes office in January.