Global Security Newswire

The United States on Monday said it would hold initial discussions with North Korea's new Kim Jong Un regime, which came to power at the end of last year after the death of longtime dictator Kim Jong Il, the New York Times reported (see GSN, Feb. 10).

The meeting is to take place on Feb. 23 in Beijing and would mark the third time in less than a year that envoys from the two nations have sought to gain traction in efforts to restart the long-paralyzed six-nation negotiations on North Korean denuclearization.

Next week's talks are anticipated to supply the Obama administration with an impression of the kind of dialogue it might expect from the rearranged leadership in Pyongyang. The U.S. side will be represented by special envoy for North Korea policy Glyn Davies. He is to meet with the North's longtime nuclear envoy, Kim Kye Gwan

Much is unknown about North Korea's new "supreme leader," the youngest son of Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Un is understood to be in his late 20s, to have little military experience and to rely on a circle of family members for advice. Washington has been worried Pyongyang could seek to boost Kim's domestic standing by launching new attacks on South Korea or conducting new missile and nuclear trials.

The United States and South Korea have called on the North to halt uranium enrichment -- a process that can produce fissile material for a warhead as well as nuclear reactor fuel -- as a precondition to any resumption of the full nuclear negotiations. The aid-for-denuclearization talks, which also involve China, Japan and Russia, were last held in late 2008.

Pyongyang has do date refused to accept any preconditions, though reports in late 2011 indicated the Kim Jong Il government had been prepared to agree to halting uranium enrichment work in exchange for an infusion of food assistance from the United States.

"They've had a change [in leadership], so I think the question is whether they are prepared to respond to what we are looking for in order to get back to talks," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

"We thought it was a good time to see where they are," she continued (Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, Feb. 13).

Korea Institute for National Unification researcher Park Young-ho told Bloomberg that "the talks will likely focus on food aid in return for North Korea stopping its uranium enrichment and missile tests. We may see progress as Kim Jong Un needs to cement his footing, but a meaningful breakthrough is unlikely as nuclear weapons are one of the most effective means to sustain the regime" (Seo/Gaouette, Bloomberg, Feb. 13).

Pyongyang has been anxious to return to bilateral talks with Washington, particularly as it wishes to demonstrate that stability has been maintained in the transfer of power, Council on Foreign Relations fellow Scott Snyder told Agence France-Presse.

"One can infer that the North Koreans, by indicating a willingness to resume the talks, believe that they are following a path characterized by continuity -- or at least that's what they want to project to the outside," he said (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Feb. 13).

South Korea on Tuesday said it was optimistic that the upcoming meeting could make headway in reaching an agreement to relaunch the six-party talks, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

"For us, it is desirable that the process of dialogue, halted after the passing of Kim Jong Il, would be continued through the upcoming U.S.-North Korea talks," Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Byung-jae said (Yonhap News Agency I, Feb. 14).

Though the North's nuclear arms development is not slated to be discussed formally at next month's high-profile Global Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, the South Korean government sees opportunities to build "additional momentum" at the forum to resolving the longstanding impasse, Yonhap reported.

"Hosting the nuclear security summit in Korea has significance that the Korean Peninsula is becoming  a symbol of awakening the importance of nuclear nonproliferation," Foreign Ministry policy planning chief Lee Sang-hyun said (Yonhap News Agency II, Feb. 14).