The top U.S. envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, has arrived in Pyongyang for meetings aimed at determining whether North Korea will return to six-party talks on its nuclear program.

The veteran diplomat is the first senior official from the Obama administration to hold direct talks with Pyongyang.

"The visit gives North Korea a lot of 'face,' a sense of importance," said Wenran Jiang, political science professor at the University of Alberta. Bosworth will meet senior North Korean officials during his three-day visit.

North Korea abandoned the six-party talks last April, declaring them "dead", in anger over international criticism of its nuclear and missile tests. But the North also sent out signals that it wanted to pursue bilateral talks with the U.S. instead of a multilateral dialogue.

Meanwhile, the North has also cooled its tough rhetoric against the U.S.

To read full CNN story — Go Here Now.