'No plan for bomb' diplomat tells US
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Your support makes all the difference.As the US and North Korea bark ever more loudly at each other, the only point of contact between the two sides is in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Bill Richardson, who became Governor of the south-western state only two weeks ago, yesterday began a third and final day of talks with Han Song Ryol, a high-ranking member of the North Korean delegation to the United Nations.
The unlikely involvement of Mr Richardson demonstrates North Korea's isolation: a senior Democrat who served as ambassador to the UN under President Clinton, he is one of the few influential Americans known in the capital of North Korea, Pyongyang.
In 1996, when he was a congressman, he negotiated the release of an American detained by Pyongyang on spying charges. Two years earlier he helped free a US helicopter pilot who accidentally strayed into North Korea.
Mr Richardson, who agreed to the meetings after obtaining permission from the State Department, has been in frequent contact with the Secretary of State, Colin Powell.
The first two days of talks had been "positive, frank and candid", covering a wide array of bilateral issues, including the reclusive state's withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Pyongyang said yesterday that any sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, to which the US plans to take its case, would be "an act of war".
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