US Supports Exchanges With NK Over New York Phil. Concert

WASHINGTON _ The U.S. State Department on Monday reaffirmed its support for cultural exchanges with North Korea as the New York Philharmonic prepared to officially announce its performance schedule in one of the most closed societies in the world.

"We continue to encourage cultural exchanges between North Korea and the U.S.," State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos told reporters.

He said such exchanges are part of the Oct. 3 agreement among South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, members of the six-party forum who are negotiating for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea in August had invited the New York Philharmonic as a means to "build confidence" with the U.S. and improve relations which, with denuclearization, would lead to diplomatic normalization.

Zarin Mehta, the president of the philharmonic, is expected to make an official announcement on Tuesday that the orchestra has accepted the invitation and will hold the concert on Feb. 26.

Mehta led a delegation to Pyongyang in October to discuss the invitation, but there has been opposition to the North Korea performance by some of the orchestra's members.

The concert would be yet another sign of thawing relations between Pyongyang and Washington, who for years locked horns over the communist country's nuclear weapons programs.

In a series of agreements reached since September 2005, North Korea has agreed to eventually dismantle its atomic weapons and programs in return for political and economic benefits promised by the other governments of the six-party talks.

(Yonhap)