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U.S., N. Korea embark on musical diplomacy

The New York Philharmonic accepts an invitation to perform in the Korean capital.

WASHINGTON - China had its table-tennis players andIran its soccer players. Now the New York Philharmonic is making a musical overture to North Korea.

Arts and sports can open doors abroad that diplomatic jawboning might not, although the record is mixed. The Philharmonic will perform Feb. 26 in one of the most closed societies in the world, a Stalinist nation whose leader rules by decree and is accused of starving and torturing his people.

Like the table-tennis diplomacy that helped lay the path for President Richard Nixon's historic 1972 trip to China, cultural outreach to a nation that President Bush has labeled part of an "axis of evil" is meant to improve a relationship defined by suspicion and mistrust.

The U.S. Table Tennis team accepted a surprise invitation from China in 1971, making the group the first Americans allowed into China since the communist takeover in 1949. The story captivated Americans and Chinese.

Sports exchanges and cultural diplomacy haven't gotten as far with Iran, whose soccer team charmed Americans by giving the U.S. players flowers before defeating them 2-1 at the 1998 World Cup. A brief blossoming of academic, cultural and other outreach followed, but dried up amid political shifts in Iran and the United States.

The United States and Iran have been estranged since the 1979 storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

The New York orchestra visit carries a risk that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will use it as propaganda, and some of Bush's advisers worry that such niceties dull U.S. leverage over the regime.

North Korea's Ministry of Culture sent the orchestra an invitation in August. In October, orchestra president Zarin Mehta spent six days in North Korea exploring venues and making other arrangements for a potential concert in Pyongyang.

That makes Mehta one of only a small number of Americans who have visited North Korea.

Another recent visitor is Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, Bush's chief envoy in nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea. He welcomed the invitation.

"It does represent a shift in how they view us, and it's the sort of shift that can be helpful as we go forward in nuclear weapons negotiations," Hill told the New York Times.

[Last modified December 11, 2007, 01:34:55]