The head of the ruling Saenuri Party, considers touring Washington in mid-July to meet with Congressional leaders there on enhancing bilateral ties, party officials said Sunday.
“We are organizing a visit to the United States by Chairman Kim Moo-sung in mid-July,” an official said. “We are still tuning the schedules to focus on enhancing parliamentary cooperation and diplomacy between the two countries.”
It would be the second overseas trip by Kim since taking office last year. Kim traveled to China in October.
The ruling party chief is expected to meet with senior officials of the Obama administration as well as Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and other Congressional leaders in Washington.
His itinerary will likely include New York and Los Angeles where a number of ethnic Koreans live.
It is not clear at the moment whether he will be able to meet with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon while in New York.
Kim had originally planned to visit the U.S. this month, but rescheduled due to the delayed parliamentary passage of the public servants pension bill and President Park Geun-hye’s planned trip to the U.S. next month, another official said.
Kim has been leading several public surveys for the next president since April 29 by-elections, where his ruling party won a landslide victory.
Then leading presidential candidates Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak traveled to Germany in September 2006 and to Japan in November 2006 each ahead of presidential elections in late 2007. (Yonhap)
