2ND LD: N.Y. Philharmonic arrives in Pyongyang for unprecedented visit

(EDS: ADDING DETAILS)

The New York Philharmonic arrived in Pyongyang on Monday for an unprecedented three-day visit whose centerpiece will be a concert on Tuesday, the first such event by American artists in North Korea.

One plane carrying orchestra members, support staff as well as traveling press members touched down at Pyongyang's Sunan International Airport in the afternoon.

The historic concert, which officials say could help bring the two countries closer together, will be held at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater on Tuesday evening.

It was unknown whether North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will attend the event.

The United States and North Korea are formally in a state of war as the 1950-1953 Korean war ended in an armed truce which has not been replaced with a peace treaty. The event has the support of the U.S. State Department.

North Korean workers have been seen busy with preparations in Pyongyang over the past few days, putting finishing touches to hotel halls and a press center, which will be complete with broadband Internet connections, a rarity in a country where Internet access is restricted.

No posters or announcements of the concert have been evident in the streets of the capital, although North Korea has announced the event through its official media last week.

''The United States is our enemy that has been attacking us for the last 100 years, but I don't think all Americans are bad people,'' Kim Hye Sim, a 27-year-old guide at a war museum, said Monday morning.

''I would like to see the concert myself,'' she said.

Officials at the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum, whose exhibit includes U.S. warplanes shot down by the North Korean military, said a group from the orchestra's delegation -- possibly journalists and support staff -- will visit the museum during its stay.

Tuesday's concert comes at a time when six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear programs remain stalled over a missed deadline.

North Korea has also slowed down the pace of disablement of its key nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, saying that the other parties in the six-party process have been slow in providing the country with promised compensation including energy assistance.

The concert by the United States' oldest symphony orchestra will include Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 ''From the New World'' and George Gershwin's ''An American in Paris.'' The orchestra is also expected to play the national anthems of the two countries.

The North Korean government first sent an invitation to the orchestra in August. Members of the orchestra visited Pyongyang before officially announcing the plan in December.