
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, September 10, 1994                   TAG: 9409120064
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA                                LENGTH: Short

1ST OFFICIAL U.S. DELEGATION ON WAY TO N. KOREA

The first official U.S. delegation to go to North Korea was heading for the capital, Pyongyang, today in a major step toward normalizing relations.

The five Americans officials, led by State Department Korea specialist Lynn Turk, are to hold technical talks on how Washington and Pyongyang can open liaison offices in each other's capitals.

The United States never has had relations with North Korea since its founding as a communist state in 1948. Opening liaison offices would be a major step toward mutual recognition.

U.S. officials say relations won't be normalized unless North Korea lets inspectors in to dispel suspicions that it has been secretly building nuclear weapons.

But South Korean officials believe the liaison offices will be opened by the end of the year in any event because they would open a channel of communication that may help speed resolution of the nuclear problem.

President Nixon ended decades of U.S. isolation of China by opening liaison offices in Beijing and Washington. President Carter subsequently normalized relations.

The U.S. State Department sees no symbolic significance in the fact that it is going to Pyongyang to open the talks, but spokesman Mike McCurry conceded last week that the North Koreans might.

by CNB