quote:
By Lee Jin-woo
Staff Reporter
North Korea expressed its willingness to hand over a U.S. spy ship, the U.S.S Pueblo, captured by the North’s navy in the late 1960s, on the visit of a U.S. governor to Pyongyang last week, diplomatic sources in Seoul said yesterday.
It was belatedly known that the North hinted at the possible return of the captured U.S. spy ship, which has been exhibited as a war trophy at a North Korean port for three decades, to Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and his delegation, according to the Yonhap News Agency.
The delegation, which also included Anthony Principi, a former U.S. secretary for veteran affairs, and Victor Cha, a White House advisor on inter-Korean affairs, was invited to see the insides of the 906-ton ship, which has been displayed near a river at the North’s capital since 1999.