The European Union is likely to cancel a planned visit to North Korea amid growing international tensions over its nuclear programme, current the EU president Greece said this afternoon.
"We're in discussion with the other member states over the development of the North Korean issue within the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," said Mr Panos Beglitis, spokesman for the Greek foreign ministry.
"Up to now the majority of countries feel the time isn't right to carry out the visit."
A decision will be taken within the next two days, Mr Beglitis said.
EU foreign ministers last month gave a tentative go-ahead for the visit to North Korea on February 11th-12th under the direction of Greek Foreign Minister Mr George Papandreou.
But tensions have since risen between North Korea and the United States, with Pyongyang threatening on Friday to turn the Korean peninsula into a "land of ashes" if Washington deploys more troops to the region as planned.
EU foreign policy chief Mr Javier Solana said yesterday he would visit Japan and South Korea to discuss the crisis over North Korea's reactivated nuclear programme, but did not foresee a trip to Pyongyang "at this stage."
The current stand-off followed US revelations last October that North Korea had admitted to running a secret enriched uranium program in violation of a 1994 accord under which the Stalinist country froze nuclear activities in exchange for fuel shipments and other aid.
AFP