LOS ANGELES/TOKYO — US officials made two secret visits to North Korea last year in an effort to improve relations after North Korea leader Kim Jong Un assumed power, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. Citing unnamed former US officials familiar with the trips, the newspaper said the visits in April and August were aimed at encouraging the new leadership in Pyongyang to moderate its foreign policy. The April trip was led by Joseph DeTrani, who at the time headed the National Counterproliferation Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the report said. It was unclear who led the August trip, the paper noted. The Times quotes the officials as saying that Sydney Seiler, a veteran CIA analyst, went on both trips. DeTrani left the government last year and now heads the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, an industry group, the newspaper noted. DeTrani said he and other US experts initially saw signs that Kim Jong-un might behave less rigidly than his father, including putting moderate figures in key government positions. Without confirming the 2012 trips, he added that it “makes eminent sense” for the United States to conduct talks with North Korean officials after Kim Jong-il's death, the paper noted. Meanwhile, Tokyo and Washington plan to install a US early-warning radar system at a coastal base near Kyoto to bolster defenses against the North Korean missile threat, reports said Sunday. The X-band radar, capable of precisely tracking the trajectory of a ballistic missile, allows US forces to launch intercept missiles from the ground and sea once a ballistic missile has been detected. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Barack Obama confirmed in their meeting Friday in Washington that the two countries would work together on the radar installation, the reports said. — Agencies
