North Korean Media Confirms UN Chief’s Visit to Pyongyang

The statement released to Reuters said Ban will be in NY and then Malta next week for the Commonwealth Summit, from where he will travel to Paris for the United Nations summit on climate change, which begins on November 30.

“There can’t be such a situation where the U.N. secretary-general visits North Korea and does not meet with the supreme leader of the U.N. member-state”, the U.N. official said.

According to the state-run media, Ban’s upcoming Pyongyang visit was also confirmed by another United Nations official residing in the DPRK who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The North Korean envoy vehemently criticized the motion, calling it a wounding denigration of North Korea authored by forces hostile to Pyongyang, and a product of political confrontation.

Ban, a South Korean, was scheduled to visit the North Korean border city of Kaesong in May but the trip was canceled when North Korea suddenly withdrew its invitation. Sources say that they provide subtle hints if a prospective partner is connected to South Korea through well-placed relatives. The UN General Assembly is expected to vote later this week on a resolution sponsored by the European Union and Japan that would condemn North Korea’s rights violations and again encourage the UN Security Council to refer the country to the war crimes tribunal.

North Korean workers are made to work as long as 20 hours a day without proper food and are kept under constant surveillance, the report said.

Ban served as South Korea’s foreign minister from 2004 to 2006, a period of intense multinational negotiations aimed at ending the North’s nuclear program. Ban, who has roughly a year remaining in his term, has repeatedly discussed wanting to play a meaningful role in improving inter-Korean relations before his term ends. But Pyongyang retracted approval for the trip at the last minute without explanation.

Reports that North Korea established a no-navigation zone over parts of the Sea of Japan have put South Korea on edge over the possibility of a missile launch by the communist regime in the near future.