Ending days of intense speculation, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will not be visiting North Korea next week, the world body said in a statement late Tuesday, denying a South Korean news agency report that Mr. Ban would be traveling to Pyongyang.
“The secretary-general will not be traveling to the DPRK next week,” a U.N. spokesman said, referring to North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The visit would have been the first by a U.N. secretary-general to the secretive and authoritarian North in more than 20 years. It would also have represented a personal coup for Mr. Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister who steps down as head of the U.N. next year.
The spokesman said Mr. Ban will will be in New York next week and will then travel to Malta and Paris, and did not rule out a future mission to Pyongyang.
“The secretary-general has repeatedly said he is willing to play any constructive role, including traveling to [North Korea], in an effort to work for peace, stability and dialogue on the Korean Peninsula,” the spokesman said.
South Korea’s Yonhap News reported on Monday that Mr. Ban would be visiting Pyongyang this week, citing an unidentified U.N. official. A discussion about North Korea’s nuclear weapons and a meeting with reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-un were among the events planned for Mr. Ban’s trip, Yonhap News said.
“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 Yonhap News.
A planned trip to North Korea last May by Mr. Ban was cancelled the day before when North Korea unexpectedly withdrew the invitation.
• Meghan Bartlett can be reached at mbartlett@washingtontimes.com.
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