High-ranking North Korean official to visit Dublin next week at invitation of Trocaire and Concern

A high-ranking government official from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is to visit Dublin next week at the invitation of Trocaire and Concern, which are assisting the communist country combat severe food shortages.

Mr Kim Chang Ryong, Vice-Foreign Minister in charge of European affairs, will be in Ireland from March 16th to 23rd, accompanied by two other North Korean officials.

He is the highest-ranking North Korean official to visit Ireland, with which the DPRK has no diplomatic relations. It is expected that Mr Kim will meet an official from the political division of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Trocaire and Concern have been supplying aid and expertise to North Korea during the last year after two harvest failures, a drought and a tidal wave brought the country close to starvation. World aid agencies with officials based in the North Korean capital Pyongyang believe food supplies will run out in late spring or early summer, and that the country will face a major crisis.

Red Cross delegations from both sides of the divided Korean peninsula are likely to hold talks in Beijing on March 25th to discuss delivery of food aid, South Korea's Red Cross said yesterday. Last December, North and South Red Cross delegations meeting in Beijing failed to agree on the delivery of new food aid to the North because of delivery transparency problems.

South Korea's unification ministry this week said it would provide 50,000 tonnes of grain to the North through the World Food Programme (WFP).

US and North Korean officials met yesterday in Berlin on issues such as North Korean missile sales, return of the remains of US servicemen from the Korean War and US sanctions. Today, officials from the US, China, North Korea and South Korea are to hold preliminary talks in Geneva before formal peace talks resume on Monday.

Historic four-way negotiations - the first since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce - opened in Geneva in December. That round failed to produce a breakthrough.

North Korea is currently engaged in a massive mobilisation exercise. In air raid drills the population of cities has been seen taking to shelters, and all vehicles are covered in camouflage nets. Even traffic police have donned green camouflage capes.

An international relief official in Pyongyang told Reuters in China by telephone yesterday that North Korea had issued a government statement saying, "The whole nation goes into a wartime mobilisation state". The order was accompanied by a gas attack exercise in Pyongyang, said the official.

A US State Department official said: "To the best of our information, we're not aware of any North Korean military activity that is outside the range of any North Korean military activity that we're familiar with." The border on the 38th parallel of the Korean peninsula remains one of the most heavily guarded regions of the world after a ceasefire halted the 1950-53 Korean war.