North Korea's No 2 leader arrives in Algeria

ALGIERS, July 24 (Reuters) North Korea's No 2 leader, Kim Yong-nam, arrived in Algeria today on his first trip to the North African country, the official Algerian news agency said.

Kim, the president of the presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly, visited Mongolia before flying to Algeria for three days and will also go to Ethiopia, North Korea's KCNA news agency has said.

He was greeted at Algiers international airport by the speaker of the upper house of parliament, Abdelkader Bensalah, APS said. It gave no details of his itinerary.

During Kim's four days in Mongolia he met the president and prime minister and signed three protocols on cooperation in the fields of health and science, trade and sea transport, and the exchange of labour, the Mongolian daily Oenoodor reported.

It was the first visit to Mongolia, a former Soviet satellite, by a senior North Korean official since 1988.

REUTERS CS PM0038