Global Security Newswire

The Obama administration again indicated Friday that it was prepared to send an envoy to North Korea for direct talks, but said it wants hard evidence that Pyongyang is serious about returning to multilateral denuclearization negotiations (see GSN, Nov. 6).

After months of requesting bilateral discussions with Washington, the North ratcheted up pressure last week with the announcement that it had finished reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, Agence France-Presse reported. Analysts have speculated that the move would produce enough plutonium for another nuclear weapon.

National Security Council official Jeff Bader said Washington wanted concrete evidence that the North was resolved to renew nuclear talks with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.

"If we see that, then there is no problem with bilateral contacts either in Pyongyang or elsewhere," Bader said. He added: "We're less interested in process than we are in outcome."

The talks stalled late last year after Pyongyang made some moves toward denuclearization, including partial disablement of the plutonium-producing Yongbyon complex. The process appeared to collapse last spring amid the North's second nuclear test and other provocations.

Sources told South Korea's Hankyoreh newspaper and Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper last week that U.S. envoy for North Korea Stephen Bosworth intended to travel to Pyongyang at the end of November.

According to Bader, no such agreement has been reached (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Nov. 6).

"The bilateral meeting appears most likely to be held after the Thanksgiving holiday, which falls on Nov. 25-29," a South Korean government official told the Yonhap News Agency.

Reports have circulated that the U.S. State Department could release information on bilateral negotiation specifics as early as today or tomorrow (Xinhua News Agency, Nov. 9).

Meanwhile, France's special diplomat to the North, Jack Lang, today began a five-day fact-finding mission in the country that is believed to include discussions about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, AFP reported.

Lang declined to say whether a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is on the agenda. French sources have said that it has not yet been decided whether the two would meet.

The envoy said that he was traveling to the North "with a willingness to start a dialogue ... one that is as wide-ranging as possible ... with the top leaders."

Lang previously discussed the North's nuclear program with Japanese, South Korean and U.S. officials. He also traveled to China to talk with government officials there about his trip to the North (Agence France Presse II/Yahoo!News, Nov. 9).