N. Korea sends delegation of state news agency to U.S.

North Korea said Thursday a delegation of its state news agency left for the United States at the invitation of the Associated Press. The Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch that the delegation led by its General Director Kim Pyong-ho departed Pyongyang earlier in the day, without elaborating. The unprecedented trip came three months after Tom Curley, president and CEO of the AP, visited Pyongyang and met with top officials in what could be a trip designed to lay the groundwork for the opening of an AP bureau in the North's capital. The rare exchange visits have fueled speculation that the U.S. newswire could open a bureau in the isolated country. The move comes as North Korea has been struggling to restrict its people's access to outside news and information out of fear that they would undermine leader Kim Jong-il's control of the country's 24 million people. AP Television News, the international video division of AP, opened a full-time office in Pyongyang in 2006, making it the first Western news organization to establish a permanent presence in North Korea. The Pyongyang office of APTN currently provides only video images.