Global Security Newswire

A delegation of U.S. officials is scheduled to travel to China, Japan and South Korea next week for discussions on North Korea, Reuters reported today (see GSN, Sept. 7).

Special envoy for North Korea Stephen Bosworth, U.S. representative to the six-party nuclear talks Sung Kim and National Security Council Asia specialist Daniel Russell are set to travel to Seoul on Sunday. They would then go on to Tokyo on Tuesday and to Beijing on Wednesday. There are no plans to visit Pyongyang, the State Department said.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley yesterday did not indicate the Obama administration was in a rush to relaunch the six-party talks which also involve Russia and were last held in December 2008. The negotiations propose to exchange massive amounts of international aid and security pledges to the North in return for its permanent nuclear disarmament.

"We will continue our consultations with key parties in this process but I would suggest, as we have in the past, that it's North Korea that needs to do what it can to create a better environment for our progress," Crowley said.

Obama officials have not specified what actions they want to see the aspiring nuclear power take in order for the United States to agree to resume negotiations. South Korea's foreign minister recently called on Pyongyang to disable its nuclear weapons facilities and to permit international inspectors back into the country. Seoul, Tokyo and Washington have also called on the North to issue an apology for the March sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors (Reuters, Sept. 8).

Crowley said no meetings with North Korean officials were "anticipated" during next week's trip, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Sept. 7).

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today that Pyongyang needs to "discuss seriously denuclearization that is irreversible," the Associated Press reported.

The Obama administration and other governments want to "convince whoever is in leadership in North Korea that their future would be far better served by" denuclearization, she said in an apparent reference to the the anticipated passage of power from Kim Jong Il to his youngest son, Kim Jong Un (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 8).