North Korea sends 'positive signal' about UN chief's visit

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says he has received "a bit of a positive signal" from North Korea about his plan to visit the reclusive country.

Ban cautioned that nothing had been decided but said he had discussed the proposed visit with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Young when he was in New York for the UN General Assembly.

"Recently, on this, there has been a bit of a positive signal from the DPRK, and we are at the moment coordinating when would be the best time to visit the DPRK, but so far nothing has been decided," Ban told South Korean journalists at UN headquarters on Monday.

The remarks were released by the UN press office on Tuesday.

"We will make the effort to do so at the earliest possible date," Ban said when asked about when the visit might take place.

Such a trip would make Ban the first UN secretary general to set foot in the North for more than 20 years, and the first international leader to meet leader Kim Jong-Un since he took power nearly four years ago.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported last week that Ban was planning to visit, but the UN said no such travel was planned for the immediate future.

A former South Korean foreign minister, Ban stressed that he was ready to play a role "to promote peace and reconciliation between the South and North Koreas, and reduce tensions."

The two Koreas remain in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 war ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

The secretary-general told reporters "it takes time to advance work, and since there are many sensitive issues at play, I request that you follow the situation with patience."

North Korea is already under a raft of UN sanctions imposed after its three nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

It has also come under increasing pressure over human rights, following a report published last year by a UN commission which concluded North Korea was committing violations "without parallel in the contemporary world".

Two UN secretary generals have visited North Korea -- Kurt Waldheim in 1979 and, in 1993, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who met with then leader Kim Il-Sung to discuss Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

Ban crossed the border to North Korea in 2006 when he was foreign minister, visiting the joint industrial zone of Kaesong with a delegation of foreign diplomats.

A previous planned visit by Ban to a factory in Kaesong was abruptly cancelled by Pyongyang in May
Source: AFP