U.S. Senate to hold hearings on NK next month

The U. S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold congressional hearings on North Korea next month, diplomatic sources disclosed Tuesday.

The senate hearings session on North Korea will be held while the administration of president George W. Bush is formulating its North Korean policies, and it is drawing extraordinary attention as to whether a noted North Korean defector, Hwang Jang-Yop, will attend the congressional session. Hwang, former secretary of the North Korean Workers Party, has been invited to visit the U. S. by Sen. Jesse Helm (Rep.), chairman of the senate foreign relations committee.

The sources said that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would open a hearings session on May 23 on the questions of North Korean policies and the North`s human rights record. The officials of the State Department and other related agencies would attend and testify at the hearings session, the sources added.

During the session, which is the first to be held since president Bush took office, a heated debate is expected to erupt between Republican hard-line senators and soft-line Democratic members. Especially as the former insisted that the Bush administration should not be pushed around by the Pyongyang regime, whereas the latter called for the continuation of former president Bill Clinton`s engagement policy with the North.

Choi Young-Hoon tao4@donga.com