North Korea signs pacts with Mongolia

Beijing, July 21: Secretive North Korea signed a handful of deals with resource-rich Mongolia on Friday, Chinese state media said, in the first visit by a high-ranking North Korean official to Ulan Bator since 1988.

Kim Yong-nam, North Korea's No. 2 leader, arrived in Mongolia yesterday for a four-day visit and met with Mongolian President Nambariin Enkhbayar and Prime Minister Miyeegombiin Enkhbold, according to China's official Xinhua news agency.

The two countries signed three protocols on cooperating in the fields of sanitation, labour services and economics, Xinhua said, adding that they had also discussed enhancing their ties in other areas including science and culture. It gave no details.

Kim, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, is also due to visit Algeria and Ethiopia, North Korea's KCNA news agency reported earlier. It said Kim aims to ''pay official goodwill visits'' to the three countries.

Mongolia, a former Soviet satellite, unusually has diplomatic relations with both energy-starved Communist North Korea and fervidly capitalist South Korea technically still at war after the cessation of their civil war in 1953.

North Korea recently agreed to allow rail travel from South Korea into North Korea and proceed through Mongolia to Russia and Europe.

North Korea may also be interested in discussing joint mining projects in Mongolia.

Mongolia, where nearly half of the 2.5 million population are nomadic herders, overthrew decades of Soviet dominance in 1991.

Sandwiched between China and Russia, Mongolia punches above its weight diplomatically, as its giant neighbours covet its gold and other mineral resources and the United States courts it as a beacon of democracy in central Asia.

Multi-party talks on how to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programme wound up on Friday in Beijing without setting any deadline, with the focus now turning to technical details and working groups before new negotiations in September. The talks have dragged on for years.

Delegates from the two Koreas, United States, Japan, Russia and China met for three days in Beijing and the chief US envoy said he still hoped a second disarmament phase could be completed this year.

North Korea quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty early in 2003 after throwing out U.N. nuclear inspectors, becoming a focus of international concern about nuclear weapons along with Iran and Iraq.

Reuters>