NEW YORK (Yonhap) ― Discussions are underway about U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s willingness to play a constructive role on the Korean Peninsula situation, “including traveling there,” his spokesman said Wednesday.
The remark by U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric was seen as a de-facto acknowledgment that talks are underway to set up what would be Ban’s first visit to North Korea, though the spokesman did not elaborate on those “discussions.”
“The secretary-general has always expressed his willingness to play a constructive role on the situation of the Korean Peninsula, including traveling there, and discussions are ongoing,” the spokesman said at a regular press briefing.
Dujarric, however, dismissed Xinhua news agency’s report that Ban is scheduled to visit the North next week.
“Unless something is announced from this podium by myself or anybody else from my office who briefs or obviously by the secretary-general, the rest is pure speculation,” he said.
Yonhap News Agency first reported earlier this week that Ban was planning to visit Pyongyang for a possible meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
China’s Xinhua reported Tuesday, citing information from the North’s official KCNA news agency, that Ban would arrive in the capital city next Monday and stay there for around four days.
Ban’s office immediately rejected the report, saying Ban was tied up all week next week.
A high-level U.N. source told Yonhap it was true that Ban was seeking to visit North Korea, and multiple “dates” are currently being discussed. One of those candidate dates was Nov. 23, which Xinhua reported, but that date was not chosen due to a scheduling conflict, the source said.
The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also denied speculation that opposition from some U.N. member states may be affecting Ban’s trip, stressing that it’s purely a matter of coordinating schedules.
Should Ban’s trip be realized, he will be the third U.N. secretary-general to visit North Korea after Kurt Waldheim in 1979 and Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1993. Both Waldheim and Boutros-Ghali met with North Korea’s founding leader, Kim Il-sung, during their visits to Pyongyang.
Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister, has repeatedly said that he will do everything possible to promote inter-Korean reconciliation and a resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue.
In May, Ban planned to visit the North Korean border city of Gaeseong, where South Korea runs an industrial complex, but the trip was called off at the last minute because Pyongyang abruptly withdrew its invitation without giving a clear reason.