North Korean envoy cancels visit

A senior North Korean envoy to the United Nations (U.N.) cancelled a visit to the University this week following instructions from officials in Pyongyang, the professor coordinating the event said Wednesday.

Han Song-Ryol, the deputy permanent representative to the U.N. from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), was scheduled to give a lecture Tuesday but "indicated that his government wouldn't allow him to attend," Wilson School professor Lynn White, the event coordinator, said.

The instructions from Pyongyang came after the State Department rejected two of Han's travel applications in recent months and declined to guarantee in advance that his travel to Princeton would be cleared, White said.

"He had gone through the U.S. government process of submitting an application to travel out of New York and they turned it down," White said. "Ambassador Han said that although he would like to come, his government, because of those two turn-downs, now forbade him to apply to the State Department . . . unless prior approval of it could be obtained."

The United States and North Korea do not have formal diplomatic relations, and the movement of any DPRK official beyond a 25-mile radius of Columbus Circle in Manhattan, where the U.N. is based, must be explicitly authorized by the U.S. government.

Two State Department officials, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record, confirmed that Han had made no application to visit Princeton.

One official confirmed that authorization for Han's recently planned visit to a nongovernmental organization in Atlanta was denied. The official had no information on authorization for a second trip in February that was allegedly also disallowed.

Han's visit was to come during a period of heightened tensions between North Korea and the United States. North Korea declared on Feb. 10 that it possesses nuclear weapons, and further announced on March 2 that it will no longer be bound by a missile-testing moratorium to which it had previously agreed.

"The U.S. position is a very clear position," Joseph DeTrani, U.S. Special Envoy to North Korea, told The Daily Princetonian on Wednesday. "It's important for the DPRK to come back to the table . . . Meaningful proposals have been put on the table. We would like talks to resume soonest."

DeTrani, who spoke at the Wilson School last week at White's invitation, declined to comment on Han's case because he was not familiar with the details.

The DPRK mission at the U.N. and the official North Korean news agency did not return requests for comment.

Lee Rae-Woon, the correspondent for the South Korean news agency Yonhap who reported that Han did not attend the lecture because of Pyongyang's "refusal to grant permission," told the Prince that DPRK mission officials did not know why the trip was cancelled.

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"I asked [the mission official] why Mr. Han cancelled the lecture. He said, 'I don't know . . . I have nothing to tell you,' " Lee said in an interview.

In recent years, Han has traveled to California to visit a think-tank and attended a conference at the Korea Institute at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in December 2003. "We have approved travel from time to time," said a second State Department official who deals with Korean affairs.

Both state officials said that travel is authorized on "case-by-case basis," and no guarantee of approval can be provided for such requests. Applications are reviewed by State Department officials in consultation with the FBI and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and then forwarded to the White House for final approval.

"They have to provide information on the purpose of their travel. It's all based on the individual circumstances," the first official said. "There isn't a blanket policy of saying no; there isn't a blanket policy of saying yes."

The official clarified that despite the recent revelations by North Korea about its nuclear arsenal, regarding travel of DPRK mission officials in the United States, "There has been no change in the State Department's policy."

Han had planned to deliver a public lecture on "North Korea and the U.S." He had been expected to join co-panelist Desaix Anderson '58, former chief executive of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO).

Though Anderson is a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and former head of KEDO — which is jointly supported by the United States, South Korea, Japan, the European Union, Canada and others — White said that he and Han are "personal friends."

"That is one of the reasons why I invited them to form a panel on this topic," White said. "Obviously they do not agree on many policy issues, but they can talk to each other."

— Youngho Ryu '07 translated Korean documents for use in reporting this story.