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Deleted User
05-25-1999, 03:44 PM
Tuesday May 25 5:54 PM ET

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<b><font size=5>U.S. Envoy Arrives in North Korea</b></font>

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TOKYO (AP) - U.S. envoy William Perry arrived Tuesday in North Korea, hoping to meet the communist country's enigmatic

ruler and persuade the government to abandon its suspected nuclear arms and missile programs.

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Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan met Perry at the Pyongyang airport, the North's official Korean Central News Agency

said in a brief dispatch monitored in Seoul, South Korea.

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In meetings Monday, Perry and officials from Japan and South Korea agreed on a joint message to send to Pyongyang, but

refused to reveal its contents.

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Perry will carry a separate message from President Clinton to senior North Korean officials, and Washington hopes he will be

able to meet the country's ruler, Kim Jong Il, a U.S. spokesman said.

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Perry heads the highest-level U.S. delegation to travel to the secretive country during the rule of Kim Jong Il, the son of

longtime ruler Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994.

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Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and congressional delegations have visited North Korea, but no one before Perry has

made an official visit representing the U.S. president.

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Perry is not likely to meet with the U.S. nuclear inspection team now in the North to take a look at an underground facility

outside Pyongyang.

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State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said in Washington on Monday that the team received ``good cooperation'' from

North Korean officials.

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Their findings will not be revealed until they have returned to the United States and briefed senior U.S. officials, Rubin said.