Australia hopeful over N Korea talks

N Korea: Opening up after decades of isolation

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, on a three-day visit to North Korea, has said he is hopeful the country will take steps to allay international concern about its missile programme.

It's incumbent on us to do what we can to try to bring North Korea in from the cold

Alexander Downer, Australian Foreign Minister

Mr Downer also announced that Australia would provide more than $5m in food aid to help ease the Stalinist country's chronic food shortages.

It is the first visit to Pyongyang by an Australian minister in 25 years.

Speaking after talks with officials, Mr Downer said he thought North Korea would take steps to stop exporting military technology and to deal with international concern over missile and nuclear development.

Mr Downer wants to protect Australian jobs

"I get a real sense that they want to bring that to an end," he said, in remarks broadcast by Radio Australia.

"There's talk about dealing with the missile question, there's talk about reunification [with South Korea]. I think it is encouraging."

Mr Downer also raised the issue of 12 Australian soldiers who went missing in action during the Korean War.

North Korean officials promised they would attempt to find out what happened to them, the radio report said.

Security

North Korean has remained cut off from most of the outside world since the peninsula split in two more than 50 years ago.

Mr Downer's visit follows last month's trip by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - the first time a top US official had met the country's formerly reclusive leader Kim Jong-il.

Before arriving in Pyongyang, Mr Downer said it was important to end North Korea's self-imposed isolation to improve regional security and boost trade.

He also stressed his trip was about securing Australian jobs.

Pyongyang alarmed the region with its 1998 missile tests

''If there were to be conflict on the Korean Peninsula that would decimate our trade to north-east Asia and that would have enormous implications for jobs and living standards back in Australia,'' he added.

''As a result it's incumbent on us to do what we can to try to bring North Korea in from the cold."

Canberra restored diplomatic relations with Pyongyang in May, becoming one of the first Western nations to re-establish ties.

Reports said Italy's Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade Enrico Letta had also arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday.

Italy became the first member of the Group of Seven industrialised powers to establish ties with North Korea in January.