After weeks of speculation, the U.S. State Department formally announced yesterday that it planned to dispatch a senior diplomat to North Korea before the year is over, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Nov. 10).
(Nov. 11) -
North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju, right, sits beside North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in August. A U.S. envoy is expected to travel to Pyongyang this year to discuss with Kang how to restart multilateral nuclear negotiations (Getty Images).
"After careful consideration and extensive consultation among our allies and partners, we have told North Korea that we are prepared for Ambassador [Stephen] Bosworth and a small interagency team to visit Pyongyang," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
North Korea has been seeking bilateral talks with the United States for months. The Obama administration has said it would only agree to meet with Pyongyang with the understanding that such meetings were to be followed quickly by a resumption of the stalled North Korean denuclearization negotiations. The talks, which also involve China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, last occurred in December 2008.
Since then, Pyongyang has conducted its second nuclear test and been hit with heightened U.N. sanctions.
"This is not the beginning of a bilateral dialogue that is separate from, you know, the six-party process," Crowley said (Agence France-Presse I/Google News, Nov. 10).
The exchange of fire Monday between two North Korean and South Korean navy ships has not changed the White House's decision to send Bosworth to Pyongyang, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today.
"This does not in any way affect the decision to send Ambassador Bosworth," Clinton said during a press conference in Singapore. "We think that this is an important step that stands on its own."
"We're obviously hoping the situation does not escalate [and are] encouraged by the calm reaction that has been present up until now," she added (Alexander/Herskovitz, Reuters/Washington Post, Nov. 11).
Seoul gave its backing yesterday to the Obama administration's decision to grant Pyongyang's request for direct talks, the Korea Herald reported.
"We support the visit by special representative Stephen Bosworth to North Korea aimed at reconfirming North Korea's denuclearization vows including an early revival of the six-nation talks and the Sept. 19 joint declaration," said South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young.
Moon emphasized Seoul's desire to see the bilateral talks speed along a return to full nuclear negotiations.
Bosworth is likely to conduct talks with North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju when he travels to Pyongyang. Kang has authority over chief North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan.
That the North has been so adamant about meeting with the United States shows that the sanctions are having their desired effect, Crowley said.
"We have to believe that North Korea has felt, you know, some of that pressure," he said. "So you've seen a shift in their strategy, the so-called charm offensive that they have engaged in for the past couple of months."
He said Washington is not going into the bilateral talks with high expectations.
"We are not going to reward North Korea simply for returning to the six-party talks," Crowley said. "We will be looking to see if they are prepared to take the kinds affirmative steps [toward denuclearization] that they had previously agreed to."
"North Korea has a history of coming back to negotiations and expecting to be rewarded just for simply coming back," he added (Kim Ji-hyun, Korea Herald, Nov. 12).
The Obama administration cautioned North Korea yesterday against pursuing any course of action that could be viewed as an "escalation" of Monday's incident, AFP reported.
"I would say to the North Koreans that we hope that there will be no further actions in the Yellow Sea that could be seen as an escalation," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said (Laurent Lozano, Agence France Presse II/Google News, Nov. 10).
Seoul responded to the naval clash by dispatching two additional warships to patrol its contested Yellow Sea boundary with the North, AFP reported.
According to South Korean military sources, the warships are intended to "reinforce vigilance" along the ocean boundary.
Seoul's Defense Ministry declined to respond to the report (Park Chan-kyong, Agence France-Presse III/Yahoo!News, Nov. 11).