By Kim Young-jin
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday he is willing to visit North Korea to improve the tense relations it has with the South.
“In my role as Secretary-General of the United Nations, I am willing to visit North Korea anytime in the name of maintaining peace on the Korean Peninsula and improving inter-Korean ties,” Ban said during an interview with cable network MBN.
The former South Korean foreign minister was in town to attend the G20 Seoul Summit, which wrapped up later in the day.
His offer came as members of the six-talks on Pyongyang’s denuclearization discuss ways to resume negotiations, which stalled last year after the North walked away from them in response to U.N. sanctions for its nuclear and missile tests.
In bilateral talks on the sidelines of the summit Thursday, President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama reiterated their stance that the North must demonstrate its genuine intent to denuclearize and warm ties with the Seoul before talks resume.
Ban encouraged Lee to work to hold an inter-Korean summit and encourage North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to return to the denuclearization talks. Such a summit was last held in 2007 during the Roh Moo-hyun administration.
Ban urged the North to live up to previous promises it made during the talks, which offered aid and security guarantees in exchange for denuclearization. “Because North Korea is a member of the international community, they should do their best to honor their pledges on denuclearization,” he said.
The secretary-general said a periodic review conducted by the U.N. outlined suggestions for the North to take to improve conditions for its people, and that he is urging Pyongyang to meet the guidelines.
Any resumption of the nuclear talks, which also include Japan, Russia, and host China, were thrown into limbo in March, when a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, was sunk in waters near the tense inter-Korean maritime border, ratcheting up tension on the peninsula.