A South Korean presidential envoy was set to return from North Korea this morning without sitting down for expected nuclear crisis talks with the communist state's secretive leader, Kim Jong-il, a Seoul official said.
Presidential envoy Lim Dong-won waited until the early hours of Wednesday in the North's capital, Pyongyang, for a meeting with Kim. The reclusive leader never showed.
"Lim Dong-won will return to Seoul without having a meeting with Kim Jong-il," said a South Korean Unification Ministry official.
South Korea had hoped Lim's unusual visit would break, or at least crack, the ice in the three-month-old crisis, but Kim's snub of the envoy from South Korean President Kim Dae-jung underscored the North's insistence it will talk only to the United States.
Officials gave no reason for Kim's failure to meet Lim, who was carrying a message from the South's outgoing President Kim and was accompanied by a close aide to President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, a champion of closer North-South relations.
Yonhap news agency quoted another Seoul official as trying to play down the snub, saying Lim "fully conveyed the South's position on the nuclear issue to North Korea and also heard the North's stance, although he did not meet Kim Jong-il."
North Korean state media said Lim met senior ruling party official Kim Yong-sun, who told the South's emissary that only direct talks between Pyongyang and Washington could resolve the nuclear crisis.