"It's politically confirmed, yes, but we prefer to have first a more profound debate here in Japan and in Seoul," Solana told reporters at the end of a two-day visit to Japan.

Solana said the DPRK had accepted the idea of his visit to Pyongyang in principle and that he looked forward to holding direct talks with Kim.

He said the fate of the trip also rested on a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency which is due tomorrow to decide whether to send the DPRK issue to the UN Security Council over a violation of non-proliferation agreements.

In talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi before flying on to Seoul, Solana promised to work closely with Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the United States, a Japanese official said.

Solana said after meeting with Japan's foreign minister on Sunday that Japan was against imposing sanctions on Pyongyang for restarting frozen nuclear facilities and ending its moratorium on missile testing.

Yesterday, the EU confirmed that the DPRK had asked to send a bureaucrat to Brussels and Athens to exchange views with European officials on a resolution to the stand-off.

Kim Chun-guk, the director of the desk for European Affairs at DPRK's foreign ministry, is likely to visit bureaucrats at the EU and in Greece, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, next week, a spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, the ROK highlighted yesterday how it differs from Washington in its view of the DPRK when the ROK's prime minister said it had never been confirmed that the DPRK has nuclear weapons.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell reiterated on Sunday on NBC television that Washington believes Pyongyang has already produced one or two nuclear weapons and that the present stand-off was aimed at thwarting the DPRK's efforts to make more.

(China Daily February 11, 2003)