Mystery man moves quietly in Seoul, raising eyebrows and hushed voices

The international man of mystery was in town again, and unlike his high-profile visit in late February, nobody, including him, the special envoy to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, wanted to talk about what he was up to.
Maurice Strong’s business card says he is the undersecretary general of the United Nations, but his handful of other titles includes special envoy to North Korea, a responsibility he has been carrying out in earnest since the closing months of last year.
He breezed through Seoul this week after checking into the Grand Hyatt Hotel on Monday, following another visit to Pyeongyang for meetings with high-ranking North Korean officials. Not only did he not call a press conference as he did in February, but he tried to stay off everyone’s radar screen.
Neither the embassy of the country he is a citizen of ―Canada ― nor the United Nations Development Program, which hosted his earlier visit here, was apprised of his schedule in Seoul. Seoul officials spoke of “instructions” to keep his four-day visit as low-key as possible, but they would not reveal who gave those instructions.
The word used by both Mr. Strong and Seoul officials to describe his role is “facilitator,” characterizing the work he is undertaking for Mr. Annan. Mr. Strong’s job is to convince Pyeongyang to become more accommodating to the urgings of the international community. Countries around the world are asking the North to use diplomacy to resolve concerns over its nuclear ambitions. Mr. Strong’s mission also involved preventing North Korea from taking more reckless action that would further exacerbate the already tense standoff with the international community. One official did not deny that personal ambition might be a factor in Mr. Strong’s attempts to find a breakthrough in the stalemate between Pyeongyang and Washington. Both sides still seem far from deciding how to even begin resolving the nuclear issue.
His hosts in the North Korean capital were Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun, and Kim Yong-nam, the president of the People’s Assembly and head of state. He held private talks with Seoul’s unification minister, Jeong Se-hyun, and the minister of foreign affairs, Yoon Young-kwan, before departing Thursday for talks with Mr. Annan in New York. He is then off to Washington to debrief State Department officials.
Mr. Strong was a wealthy energy executive before devoting himself to public service.

by Kim Young-sae