DHAKA: Retired US basketball player Dennis Rodman is taking a team to North Korea for a match marking leader Kim Jong-un`s birthday.

Rodman and the team of former US National Basketball Association (NBA) players were to fly from Beijing on Monday ahead of Wednesday`s match, reports BBC.

Rodman, who says he is friends with the young North Korean leader, said his aim was to "connect two countries".

State Department officials have made it clear Rodman does not represent the US.

The sportsman has also been strongly criticised for ignoring North Korea`s human rights abuses.

Dennis Rodman last visited North Korea in December, shortly after the execution of Chang Song-thaek.

The fall of Kim Jong-un`s once-powerful uncle was seen as a major shake-up at the very top of Pyongyang`s elite.

On that visit, Rodman`s third, he did not meet Mr Kim. He has met the young leader on his other two previous visits, however, and is the highest-profile American to have done so.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (front left) and former NBA star Dennis Rodman (front right) speaking at a basketball game in Pyongyang, 28 February 2013 Rodman has had rare access to the the North Korean leader, about whom little is known

This time, he leads a squad of players on a trip he is describing as "basketball diplomacy". The squad will play a North Korean team in an exhibition match.

Rodman`s visit comes amid ongoing international concern over stability inside North Korea following the sudden execution of Mr Chang, who was seen as a major leadership figure.

In a New Year`s address on Monday, South Korean leader Park Geun-hye called the situation on the Korean peninsula "more grave than ever".

The execution had "made it harder to predict" what might happen, she said.

She called for dialogue between the two nations and for a reunion meeting for families divided by the division of the Korean peninsula at the end of the Korean War in 1953.

The first such meeting in three years was scheduled but then cancelled by the North Korean side in September last year.

BDST: 1147 HRS, JAN 06 , 2014
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