North Korea nuclear envoy may visit US for talks

WASHINGTON, Feb 27 (Reuters) North Korea's top nuclear negotiator may visit San Francisco to meet non-governmental groups and then go to New York for talks with his US counterpart, the US State Department said.

Responding to media reports of a possible visit by Kim Kye-gwan, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters: ''I think that he has some meetings, potentially, with some NGOs out there in San Francisco.'' ''We're still working through the logistics of a meeting between (him) and Chris Hill,'' he added, referring to the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and the top US delegate to talks on ending Pyongyang's atomic ambitions.

On Saturday, South Korea's Yonhap News quoted unidentified sources in the U.S. as saying that Kim would visit San Francisco for a lecture on March 1 and then head to New York for a meeting with Hill.

Kim arrived in Beijing today, accompanied by a senior North Korean official in charge of relations with the United States and an interpreter, Japan's Kyodo news agency said, adding that they may depart for the United States as early tomorrow.

McCormack said a meeting between Hill and Kim, if one took place, was expected to happen in New York although the date and other details were still being worked out.

Such talks are envisaged under the February 13 agreement in which North Korea agreed to take steps toward nuclear disarmament in exchange for energy aid.

The agreement, reached four months after Pyongyang stunned the world with its first nuclear test, requires the secretive communist state to shut down the reactor at the heart of its nuclear ambitions and to allow international inspections.

The deal also called for a working group on the normalisation of U.S.-North Korean relations to meet within 30 days. The United States proposed that it meet in New York, where US and North Korean officials sometimes have contacts.

REUTERS BDP ND0940