NKorea calls envoys back to meet on missiles

SEOUL, July 15: North Korea has called its top foreign envoys back to Pyongyang for a meeting next week, a news report today said, as the communist state faced the prospect of a UN censure for firing off a barrage of missiles.

About 30 foreign mission heads will attend the rare meeting, at which Pyongyang's response to international moves over its missile launches is likely to be discussed, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper quoted a senior diplomat in Seoul as saying.

''Chairman Kim Jong-il has recently called a meeting of the top foreign envoys ... there had been only three such meetings since the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994,'' the diplomat was quoted as saying,'' referring to the North's leader and his father, whom he succeeded.

Kim may speak about the direction of the North's missile policy at the meeting, the report quoted the diplomat as saying.

The last meeting of the reclusive communist state's foreign envoys took place in July 2001, the report said.

The UN Security Council appeared close to a deal on a resolution condemning North Korea's July 5 launch of seven missiles, averting a Chinese veto in a vote that the United States and Japan want today.

REUTERS