AIRLINK 189.64 Decreased By ▼ -7.01 (-3.56%)
BOP 10.09 Decreased By ▼ -0.05 (-0.49%)
CNERGY 6.68 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.15%)
FCCL 34.14 Increased By ▲ 1.12 (3.39%)
FFL 17.09 Increased By ▲ 0.44 (2.64%)
FLYNG 23.83 Increased By ▲ 1.38 (6.15%)
HUBC 126.05 Decreased By ▼ -1.24 (-0.97%)
HUMNL 13.79 Decreased By ▼ -0.11 (-0.79%)
KEL 4.77 Increased By ▲ 0.01 (0.21%)
KOSM 6.58 Increased By ▲ 0.21 (3.3%)
MLCF 43.28 Increased By ▲ 1.06 (2.51%)
OGDC 224.96 Increased By ▲ 11.93 (5.6%)
PACE 7.38 Increased By ▲ 0.37 (5.28%)
PAEL 41.74 Increased By ▲ 0.87 (2.13%)
PIAHCLA 17.19 Increased By ▲ 0.37 (2.2%)
PIBTL 8.41 Increased By ▲ 0.12 (1.45%)
POWER 9.05 Increased By ▲ 0.23 (2.61%)
PPL 193.09 Increased By ▲ 9.52 (5.19%)
PRL 37.34 Decreased By ▼ -0.93 (-2.43%)
PTC 24.02 Decreased By ▼ -0.05 (-0.21%)
SEARL 94.54 Decreased By ▼ -0.57 (-0.6%)
SILK 0.99 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-1%)
SSGC 39.93 Decreased By ▼ -0.38 (-0.94%)
SYM 17.77 Decreased By ▼ -0.44 (-2.42%)
TELE 8.66 Decreased By ▼ -0.07 (-0.8%)
TPLP 12.39 Increased By ▲ 0.18 (1.47%)
TRG 62.65 Decreased By ▼ -1.71 (-2.66%)
WAVESAPP 10.28 Decreased By ▼ -0.16 (-1.53%)
WTL 1.75 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-2.23%)
YOUW 3.97 Decreased By ▼ -0.03 (-0.75%)
BR100 11,814 Increased By 90.4 (0.77%)
BR30 36,234 Increased By 874.6 (2.47%)
KSE100 113,247 Increased By 609 (0.54%)
KSE30 35,712 Increased By 253.6 (0.72%)

 SEOUL: Former US President Jimmy Carter intends to visit North Korea in an apparent bid to help ease acute cross-border tensions, South Korea's foreign ministry said Thursday.

Seoul is "paying attention to Carter's plan to visit North Korea," foreign ministry spokesman Cho Byung-Jae told reporters, calling it "a personal trip."

"All the communications currently under way for the visit are purely private talks... and the US government also said his trip would be a personal visit," he said.

Carter has been in talks with the North's UN mission in New York to arrange his trip to Pyongyang, Yonhap news agency said.

"He will likely visit the North about a month later," a diplomatic source was quoted as saying.

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, ex-Irish president Mary Robinson and former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland may go together with Carter, Yonhap said.

The 2002 Nobel Peace Prize laureate made a landmark visit to Pyongyang in 1994 when the US came close to war with North Korea over its nuclear programme, helping defuse the crisis through talks with then-leader Kim Il-Sung.

He also visited the isolated communist state in August last year to secure the release of an American held there for illegal entry.

Tension is high on the peninsula marking the first anniversary of the North's alleged sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors.

South Korea launched a major live-fire drill Thursday near the tense land border with the North. It is also holding a week-long sea exercise that began on Monday to mark the anniversary.

Security fears increased further after Pyongyang last November shelled a border island and disclosed an apparently functional uranium enrichment plant to visiting US experts.

Pyongyang said the plant was a peaceful energy project, but experts warned it could be reconfigured to make weapons-grade uranium, giving the North a second way to produce bombs on top of its plutonium-based weapons.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011

Comments

Comments are closed.