March 01, 2007	Thursday	Safar 11, 1428

WASHINGTON, Feb 28: US and North Korean officials will meet in New York on March 5 and 6 for talks that could lead to normalisation of diplomatic relations, said the State Department on Wednesday.

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill will lead the US team and Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan will head the North Korean delegation.

The North Korean delegation is arriving in San Francisco on Wednesday and will later proceed to New York for the talks.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the two sides would work on the agenda for the normalisation process.

On February 13, North Korea signed an agreement in Beijing, agreeing to suspend its nuclear programme in return for economic incentives from the United States and other members of the six-party talks that led to the deal.

The agreement urges the US and North Korea to open bilateral talks “aimed at resolving pending bilateral issues and moving toward full diplomatic relations.”

It also calls for the United States to “begin the process of removing the designation of North Korea as a state-sponsor of terrorism and advance the process of terminating the application of the Trading With the Enemy Act” to Pyongyang.

The United States still maintains it does not talk to North Korea outside the context of the six-party negotiations, which involve China, Russia, South Korea and Japan.

But the outlines of the Beijing deal were worked out in advance during three days of one-on-one meetings between Mr Kim and Mr Hill in Berlin.

The breakthrough was also preceded by negotiations between North Korea and the US Treasury Department, which in September 2005 had prevented a bank in Macao to freeze $24 million of Pyongyang’s overseas holdings.

The administration is already taking steps to list some of the sanctions against North Korea, sources at the US Office of Foreign Assets Control told reporters.

The office is tasked with tracking the assets of America’s enemies.