US envoy for DPRK to visit China, ROK, Japan

The United States announced on Friday that its special envoy for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will return to China, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan for discussions on policy toward Pyongyang next week. During his five-day visit that starts Monday, Glyn Davies will meet with senior government officials as well as his counterparts to "discuss North Korea policy," the State Department said in a statement. Davies last visited the three countries in November, and this time he will go on the heels of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Daniel Russel, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, who visited these countries this week. The DPRK on Friday repeated its call for ROK's "positive response" to its "important proposals" on improving inter-Korean relations. A letter, sent by the National Defense Commission a day earlier under a special order from DPRK's top leader Kim Jong Un, urged Seoul to "stop all hostile military acts, the biggest hurdle stoking distrust and confrontation" on the Korean Peninsula. The letter said Pyongyang has "already unilaterally opted for halting all acts of getting on the nerves" of ROK, and did not ask ROK authorities to stop ordinary military drills. The move came after the ROK government rejected the DPRK's dialogue offer earlier this month due to "unacceptable pre- conditions attached," referring to Pyongyang's demand for cancellation of the annual U.S.-ROK military drills scheduled to start in late February.