U.S. special envoy for Korea Charles Kartman briefs South Korean Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Choi Sung-hong during a meeting between the two men in Seoul November 19. Kartman, the highest ranking U.S. official to visit North Korea since 1994, has just returned from Pyongyang where he was sent to try to gain access to see an underground project suspected of housing a revived North Korean nuclear programme. Kartman said the U.S. and North Korea remain far apart over the issue of access to the suspected nuclear project.

PB/TAN/ME