Singabloodypore

AP
Posted: 2008-05-10 06:23:46

BEIJING, May 10 (Kyodo) - Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo and his party arrived in Pyongyang on Saturday, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported.

The KCNA report, monitored in Beijing, gave no further details of Yeo's visit, but Singapore's Foreign Ministry said Friday that he would be making a five-day official visit to North Korea from Saturday, accompanied by a business delegation.

It marks the first official trip to North Korea by a Singapore Cabinet minister.

Singapore currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and will host this year's annual gathering of foreign ministers from ASEAN and countries outside the region, including North Korea.

Yeo is expected to hold talks in Pyongyang with his North Korean counterpart Pak Ui Chun, who is expected to come to Singapore in July to attend the ASEAN Regional Forum, a multilateral security forum.

The two foreign ministers held bilateral talks last August in Manila on the sidelines of the annual ASEAN meetings.

Yeo is expected to reiterate Singapore's hope of seeing progress in the six-party talks on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

He has stressed in his public speeches that it is important to hold out hope to North Korea of rapid economic development once it changes policy.