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    October 19, 2011

US Sets New Talks With Pyongyang

   David Gollust | State Department
   US special envoy on North Korea Stephen Bosworth (file photo)
   Photo: AP
   US special envoy on North Korea Stephen Bosworth (file photo)

   The United States says it will hold another round of 'exploratory'
   talks with North Korea next week in Geneva on Pyongyang's readiness to
   fulfill nuclear disarmament commitments. The State Department also has
   confirmed that its special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, is
   stepping down.
   Officials say the announcement of new talks with Pyongyang and the
   pending departure of special envoy Bosworth is coincidental, and
   reflects no change in U.S. policy toward North Korea and its nuclear
   program.
   Bosworth is a retired senior diplomat who took the North Korea post on
   a part-time basis in 2009. He will be leaving shortly to return
   full-time to his job as dean of the prestigious Fletcher School of Law
   and Diplomacy at Tufts University near Boston.

   US Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Glyn
   Davies speaks in Vienna, Austria, June 9, 2011.

AP

   US Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Glyn
   Davies speaks in Vienna, Austria. (file photo)

   His successor will be veteran diplomat Glynn Davies, a State Department
   East Asia specialist who has until now been U.S. ambassador to the
   International Atomic Energy Agency.
   At a news briefing Wednesday, State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark
   Toner confirmed the change and the U.S.-North Korean meetings next
   Monday and Tuesday in Geneva. He said Bosworth will head an interagency
   U.S. team to the meetings and will introduce Davies to his counterpart,
   North Korean Vice Foreign Minister and nuclear envoy Kim Kye Guan.
   The Geneva meeting is part of a warming trend in contacts between North
   Korea and the United States and South Korea in recent months that has
   given rise to hopes for a resumption of stalled six-party talks on
   North Korea's nuclear program.
   Spokesman Toner called the Geneva round a continuation of exploratory
   contacts aimed at determining if Pyongyang is ready to take 'concrete'
   steps to fulfill previous nuclear commitments.
   'We want to see it take steps toward de-nuclearization. I'm not going
   to give specifics on what those steps are. But what we want to see is a
   seriousness of purpose. We're not going to, as we've said many times,
   reward North Korea just for returning to the table, nor give them
   anything new for actions they've [already] agreed to take,' he said.
   North Korea agreed in principle at the six-party talks in 2005 to scrap
   its nuclear program, including a presumed small stockpile of weapons,
   in return for economic and diplomatic incentives from other
   participants.
   But Pyongyang pulled out of the Chinese-hosted talks in 2009 after
   being censured for a long-range missile test. Its relations with Seoul
   were in crisis last year after the sinking of a South Korean navy ship
   and the shelling of a South Korean island near the North Korean border.
   North Korea expert Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast
   Asia at Washington's Heritage Foundation, says he sees no softening of
   the U.S. and South Korean approach to Pyongyang, despite the recent
   political outreach.
   'What we may have is a greater willingness to have meetings, perhaps
   even a series of bilateral meetings," said Klingner. "But the emphasis
   by officials has been that if North Korea isn't willing to fulfill some
   preconditions, or actually make some positive movement, then the
   meetings won't be very successful.'
   Klingner says the United States and Seoul want to see further progress
   in intra-Korean relations, a freeze on North Korean nuclear activity,
   including a halt to a uranium enrichment effort disclosed last year,
   the return of IAEA inspectors to North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear
   complex, and a long-range missile test moratorium.
   He says the increased diplomatic activity likely forced the U.S. move
   to a full-time North Korea envoy, and that South Korea may have quietly
   resented the fact that the outgoing envoy Bosworth was dividing his
   time between his diplomatic and academic roles.
   The State Department also confirmed Wednesday that diplomat Clifford
   Hart is replacing Sung Kim as U.S. envoy to the six-party talks. Kim, a
   Korean-American, was confirmed by the Senate last week as the new U.S.
   ambassador to South Korea.