A shift in North Korea
Reading between the lines here but this looks really interesting.
From
Google/AFP:
NKoreans on quiet US trip on food aid
North Korean officials quietly visited Los Angeles last week to talk about resuming food aid, which the impoverished state cut off five months ago during a standoff, participants have said.
The move comes as tensions gradually ease with North Korea, which stunned the world by conducting a nuclear test earlier this year but in recent weeks has made overtures for dialogue.
Five North Korean officials received special US permission to visit Los Angeles where they met representatives of non-governmental organizations that provide relief worldwide, according to the groups.
Richard Walden, president of Operation USA, said the charity picked up the North Koreans at the airport as a goodwill gesture and took them on a tour of its warehouse stocked with medicine and medical equipment to be sent overseas.
"They were very open, very nice and very cordial," Walden told AFP. "They looked like they were from any other aid ministry in any country."
Walden said the North Koreans' three-day trip came about after former president Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang on August 4 to free two US journalists.
"This was something useful made possible by Clinton's visit," Walden said, while declining details on how the trip came about. "I was delighted that the State Department gave visas almost immediately."
The delegation, which also met with other relief groups, included four members of the Korea-US Private Exchange Society, the North Korean body charged with handling relief goods from US non-governmental organizations.
A fifth delegation member came from North Korea's mission at the United Nations and received special permission to travel beyond the New York area, Walden said.
Richard Nixon opened up China to the rest of the world. Maybe Bill Clinton will be remembered as the person who opened up North Korea. Very cool if it happens -- being a state sponsor of terrorism is not the way to go through life...
Posted by DaveH at August 30, 2009 10:53 AM