A senior UN official will visit North Korea next month as a special envoy of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations announced on Sunday. In a statement the world body said that Lynn Pascoe, under-secretary-general for political affairs, would visit the reclusive Communist state February 9-12 to discuss "all issues of mutual interest and concern in a comprehensive manner."
Pascoe will also visit China, Japan and South Korea, the UN said. North Korea was hit with fresh UN sanctions last year to punish it for a nuclear test in May 2009, its second atomic detonation. The expanded measures are aimed at cutting off its arms sales, a vital export estimated to earn the destitute state more than $1 billion a year.
North Korea's biggest arm sales come from ballistic missiles, with Iran and other Middle Eastern states as customers, according to US government officials. The UN sanctions and the cut-off of handouts from South Korea have dealt a blow to the North, which has an estimated GDP of $17 billion, and could force it back into nuclear disarmament talks in the hopes of winning aid.