Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special envoy for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), arrived in Pyongyang Tuesday afternoon on a mission to bring the DPRK back to international nuclear disarmament talks.

Jong Tae Yang, vice-director of the DPRK Foreign Ministry's America Bureau, welcomed Bosworth and his delegation at the airport.

Bosworth did not meet reporters at the airport, which, according to a DPRK Foreign Ministry official, was a consensus decision by the United States and the DPRK.

Bosworth's visit is reportedly aimed at bringing Pyongyang back to the stalled six-party talks on ending its nuclear programs. It would be the first bilateral meeting between the two sides since U.S. President Barack Obama took office in January.

The DPRK shut down Yongbyon nuclear facilities in 2007 under a six-nation nuclear disarmament deal. In April, it quit the six-party talks and announced it was resuming the reprocessing of plutonium from spent fuel rods at the reactor there.

It conducted an underground nuclear test in May and declared it was in the final phase of an experimental, highly enriched uranium program -- another way to make an atomic bomb.

The DPRK has expressed willingness to return to the six-party talks involving itself, the United States, China, the Republic of Korea, Japan and Russia, if it has satisfactory talks with Washington.

(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2009)