Kartman, executive director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), arrived in Pyongyang by air, the official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch giving no other details.

The trip followed discussions by the KEDO -- a consortium made up of the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union -- to suspend the five billion dollar energy project in North Korea.

South Korea's chief delegate to the consortium, Chang Sun-Sup, told AFP Tuesday Kartman would discuss with North Korean officials the suspension which will be announced officially on November 21.

North Korea has demanded US compensation for the suspension of work on constructing two light water nuclear reactors in the communist state.

The United States says North Korea has run a secret uranium-enrichment program and violated a 1994 nuclear safeguard agreement which had initiated the energy project for Pyongyang.

While Pyongyang denies the US claims, Washington suspended heavy fuel supplies to the North in November, 2002.

Under the 1994 pact, the United States is supposed to meet North Korea's energy needs while the reactors are being built by the fund mostly raised by South Korea and Japan.

Kartman will visit Seoul on Tuesday to brief South Korea on the outcomes of his North Korea trip, according to Seoul officials.

The wrangle over the suspension of the project comes amid intensified diplomatic efforts to convene a new round of multilateral talks to resolve the nuclear crisis following initial six-way talks in Beijing in August.

WAR.WIRE