Global Security Newswire

The Obama administration yesterday did not rule out the possibility of additional informal talks this week with a North Korean envoy visiting the United States, the Yonhap News Agency reported (see GSN, Oct. 26).

On Saturday, the U.S. special representative to six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program met for one hour with Pyongyang's deputy nuclear negotiator in New York. Washington envoy Sung Kim reportedly conveyed the Obama administration's stance on Korean denuclearization and its desire that nuclear negotiations with the North take place in a multiparty framework that includes China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

"Ambassador Kim took the opportunity to once again lay out what our position is on the way forward, with the ultimate goal of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and that we believe that the best way forward on that is through the resumption of the six-party talks," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly.

North Korean visitor Ri Gun is in San Diego today for an academic conference and is expected back in New York later this week for another event. Rumors are circulating that Kim and Ri will confer again in San Diego to consider the possibility of U.S. special envoy for North Korea Stephen Bosworth traveling to Pyongyang for direct talks.

"Ambassador Kim is now in La Jolla for this Track Two conference," Kelly said. "There are no plans for further bilateral meetings at this conference, but I don't exclude that there won't be some side meetings with Mr. Ri Gun."

Previous reports have indicated that the Obama administration is holding off on sending Bosworth to North Korea until it has a promise that Pyongyang will resume six-nation negotiations, Yonhap reported. Washington has also said it wants Bosworth to meet with North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok Joo rather than the country's chief nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye Gwan (Yonhap News Agency, Oct. 27).

Pyongyang has been asking for direct negotiations with the United States for some time, after last participating in the six-party talks in December 2008. Prior to that, North Korea had taken some steps toward meeting its obligations under denuclearization deals with the other five states. However, the process stalled and was followed last spring by the North's second nuclear test and several missile launches. Another round of U.N. Security Council sanctions were then imposed on the impoverished country.

The Stalinist state has since indicated its willingness to re-engage with its negotiating partners. It has not, however, given up on hard-line rhetoric.

Pyongyang today charged the United States with increasing manufacturing and fielding of "bunker-buster" bombs, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Aug. 3).

The official communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary that Washington is preparing the weapons so it can "attack underground military targets and nuclear facilities." The paper said this demonstrated that the United States had not let go of its "ambitions to stifle" North Korea.

Another official newspaper, Minju Joson, made similar assertions and said that "the only choice our republic can make at a time when its dignity and safety is under threat is to strengthen its war deterrence by all means."

Despite North Korea's hints at conciliation, South Korea has remained wary of its neighbor's intentions.

The North has demonstrated "no substantive change" in its stance on its nuclear weapons program said South Korean Vice Unification Minister Hong Yang-ho today (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Oct. 27).