UN Chief to Visit North Korea This Week

His comments came soon after Yonhap News Agency reported from NY that Ban plans to visit Pyongyang this week.

Precise dates was not clear.

A State Department official also said that related queries should be referred to the United Nations.

Both Waldheim and Boutros-Ghali met with North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il-sung during their visits to Pyongyang.

Pyongyang’s nuclear activities have received worldwide condemnation.

The prohibited area is near the eastern port city of Wonsan where leader Kim Jong Un’s family compounds are located, according to media reports.

The source noted that since inter-Korean tensions heightened in August, North Korea has designated a no-sail zone in the waters every month and held exercises such as deploying multiple rocket launchers on the coastal area, but has not gone as far as launching a missile.

Analysts said North Korea will use the visit to flag its willingness to engage with the worldwide community at a time when it is under fire over its nuclear weapons program and human rights record. Many experts believe the North could test launch a newly developed missile that separates into several sub-missiles at high altitude, which can hit several targets at once.

He crossed the border to visit the joint industrial zone of Kaesong with a delegation of foreign diplomats in 2006 when he was South Korean foreign minister.