Ban: U.N. works for N. Korea breakthrough

SEOUL, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- The United Nations is ready to do whatever is necessary to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says.

Speaking Wednesday at a Seoul hospital where he was visiting ailing former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, Ban said the United Nations "will work to find a breakthrough by any means necessary, and it has plans to directly contact North Korea if it needs to," the South Korean Yonhap News Agency reported.

Ban had indicated earlier in New York that he was willing to make a personal trip to Pyongyang to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to reengage in the suspended six-way de-nuclearization talks with South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China, Yonhap said.

North Korea declared in April that it would permanently quit the six-way talks, but since then there have signs of thawing relations between Pyongyang and Washington. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton flew to the North Korea this month to negotiate the release of two female American journalists after a North Korean envoy to the U.N. said the country would be willing to talk to the United States, Yonhap reported.