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North Korea welcomes European countries' decision |
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October 22, 2000
SEOUL (AP) - North Korea on Saturday welcomed decisions by European nations to open diplomatic ties with the communist state, its official news agency said. During a summit meeting of 25 Asian and European nations in Seoul this week, Britain, Germany, Spain and Belgium said they would normalize relations with North Korea. "We welcome the decision of those countries, considering that this conforms with the trend of the situation today when radical changes are taking place in the international relations after the end of the Cold War," the North's official foreign news outlet, KCNA, qouted a Foreign Ministry spokesman it did not identify as saying. North Korea has been pursuing contacts with the outside world, apparently aimed at easing international concerns over the hard-line communist country and facilitating outside economic aid. North Korea's economy began declining after the collapse of the former Soviet bloc stripped Pyongyang of key ideological and trade partners and aid providers in the early 1990s. Years of disastrous weather devastated its already inefficient collective farm system, forcing the North to depend on outside handouts to feed its 22 million people. Last month, the North had proposed opening diplomatic ties with Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Britain and the European Commission. Six European countries - Italy, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Denmark and Austria - have diplomatic relations with North Korea. On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright travels to North Korea to meet with the North's leader Kim Jong Il. The agenda is expected to include removing North Korea from a U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring nations, which bars all but humanitarian aid to the North and forbids other economic benefits.
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