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| N.Korean FM meets Myanmar FM amid nuclear worries |
North Korea`s foreign minister met his Myanmar counterpart during a trip to the country, Pyongyang media reported Saturday, in a visit likely to be watched by Western nations fearful the two regimes could be co-operating on nuclear weapons.
The Korean Central News Agency said a delegation led by Pak Ui Chun met with U Nyan Win and officials on Friday in the administrative capital Naypyidaw.
"At the talks the two sides exchanged views on the issue of developing the friendly relations between the two countries and regional and international issues of mutual concern," KCNA said.
The brief report provided no details on the substance of the discussions.
Pak arrived on Thursday in Yangon, an official in Myanmar said. His visit is expected to conclude on Sunday.
Myanmar severed ties with Pyongyang in 1983 following a failed
assassination bid by North Korean agents on South Korea`s then-president Chun Doo-Hwan during a visit to the Southeast Asian nation. The attempt left 21 people dead.
But the two countries branded "outposts of tyranny" by the United States have been rebuilding relations in recent years, resuming diplomatic ties in 2007.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week expressed worries about military ties between North Korea and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
"We know that a ship from North Korea recently delivered military equipment to Burma and we continue to be concerned by the reports that Burma may be seeking assistance from North Korea with regard to a nuclear programme," she said during a visit to Hanoi.
In June the ruling junta denied allegations -- in a documentary produced by the Norwegian-based news group Democratic Voice of Burma -- that Myanmar had begun an atomic weapons programme with Pyongyang`s help.
The documentary cited a senior army defector and years of "top secret material". It showed thousands of photos and testimony from defectors that it said revealed the junta`s nuclear ambitions and a secret network of underground tunnels, allegedly built with North Korean assistance.
Myanmar is preparing for rare elections sometime later this year that critics have dismissed as a sham due to laws that have barred opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from participating.
North Korea is currently fending off attempts by Seoul and Washington to punish it for what the allies claim was its torpedoing of a warship in March near the disputed sea border with the loss of 46 South Korean seamen.
Pyongyang denies any role in the sinking, claiming allegations against it are a smear campaign and threatening war.
