AP
10/5/2007
A group of North Korean diplomats got a secret tour of Washington last month, seeing the White House and driving past the Pentagon, the Chicago Tribune reported on its website Friday.
But the 16 North Korean diplomats and their families posted to the United Nations and normally not allowed to travel outside New York were not all that impressed on their September 8 visit, which the Tribune called “unprecedented.”
“They were like, ‘Is that all?’ when they stopped at the White House, Fred Carriere, executive director of the Korea Society and one of the group’s tour escorts, told the newspaper.
The visit came as Washington begun acknowledging Pyongyang’s progress on meeting its commitments to move toward nuclear disarmament.
The Tribune said the North Koreans came to Washington with the approval of Christopher Hill, the senior US diplomat in charge of negotiating the North Korean nuclear disarmament deal under the six-party framework.
Because the two countries do not have diplomatic relations and have remained technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War, Pyongyang’s diplomats are normally confined to a 40 kilometer (25 mile) radius from Manhattan, where the United Nations is located.
Carriere told the Tribune that the North Koreans also visited the Lincoln Memorial landmark in central Washington, where they demonstrated their knowledge of US history.
One pointed to the Lincoln quote inscribed on the memorial wall asserting that all men are created equal and said: “But we understand he had slaves,” Carriere said.
The Tribune reported that in another sign of warming relations, representatives of the New York Philharmonic were to travel to Pyongyang this week to arrange a visit there by the United States’ most prominent orchestra.
