SEOUL, June 16 (Yonhap) -- The following is a chronology of contacts and high-level talks that have taken place between the United States and North Korea since U.S. President Barack Obama took office in January 2009. Jan. 20, 2009: U.S. President Barack Obama is inaugurated. Dec. 8-10, 2009: Stephen Bosworth, Washington's special representative for North Korea policy, visits North Korea as Obama's special envoy and holds talks with the North's Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju and its top nuclear envoy, Kim Kye-gwan.

North Korea on Sunday proposed high-level talks with the US on denuclearisation and easing tensions on the Korean peninsula, just days after it abruptly cancelled a rare meeting with the South. Tension has been high on the peninsula since the North's third nuclear test in February that triggered new UN sanctions which ignited an angry response from Pyongyang, including threats of nuclear attacks on Seoul and Washington.

North Korea has proposed high-level talks with the US aimed at discussing nuclear weapons programmes and easing of tension on the peninsula, state media said Sunday. "We propose high-level talks between the North and the US to secure peace and stability in the region and ease tension on the Korean peninsula," the North's powerful National Defense Commission said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.

Clutching a hand-written placard honouring Georgia's "fallen heroes", Giorgi Lomsadze had to admit that most Georgians do not back his calls to pull the country's troops out of Afghanistan. Nonetheless, he said a growing number of people in this tiny former Soviet state are asking questions after a spate of deadly attacks against Georgian soldiers serving in the war-torn country. Georgia has some 1,550 troops in Afghanistan, making the small Caucasus nation of 4.5 million the largest non-NATO contributor to the alliance's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).