On Monday, November 9, the Obama administration officially accepted North Korea’s invitation to hold bilateral talks with the isolated country. The State Department has not yet announced the date of these talks but they will most likely follow Obama’s trip to Asia. Stephan Bosworth, the special representative for North Korea, will go to Pyongyang to meet with top North Korea officials to discuss reviving the six-party talks. North Korea left the six-party talks early this year following the United Nations condemnation of its April 5 firing of its Taepodong-2 rocket over the Sea of Japan. The six-party talks, which include the United States, South Korea, Russia, China, Japan, and North Korea, began in 2003 following North Korea’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Profileration Treaty (NPT). The talks aim to find a peaceful resolution to the region’s foremost security concern: the North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
The decision came right before President Obama’s weeklong trip to Asia. The President will be visiting four countries in East and Southeast Asia. Obama will first travel to Japan where he and Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama plan to issue a joint statement calling for a world without nuclear weapons. From there he will attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Singapore, then to China to meet with Chairman Hu Jintao, and finally to South Korea. Some of the major talking points will be U.S.-Asia trade relationships, and North Korea.
As this story continued to unfold, more chapters were written when a North Korea patrol ship and a South Korean warship exchanged fire along a disputed western sea border on Tuesday, November 10th. The sea skirmish added tension between North Korea and the United States prior to the President’s trip to Asia and Ambassador Bosworth’s mission to Pyongyang. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton announced at a press conference in Singapore that diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear standoff with North Korea will continue despite the dispute.
On November 6, Jeffrey Bader, the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for East Asian Affairs on the National Security Council, announced at the Brookings Institution that the United States is willing to hold bilateral talks with the North Koreans. Mr. Bader stated: “The Obama Administration believes it is better to hear directly from others, including adversaries, than to hear from them secondhand through a filter, but we are not in talks for talks’ sake.” Bader emphasized that these unilateral talks will still be in the context of the six-party talks but they indiciate a shift in U.S. negotiating tactics with the North Koreans. This will be the first time since President Obama took office that a special envoy will meet with the North Koreans directly.
A week prior to the decision to send the special envoy, North Korean officials warned the Obama administration that North Korea is “ready to go our own way” with its nuclear program if bilateral talks do not being soon. Ri Gun, North Korea Foreign Ministry’s top U.S. official, told the North Korean state run news media that in order to achieve a nuclear-free Korean peninsula the United States and North Korea must first end their hostile relationship. The North Koreans since the Obama Administration has taken office have been especially aggressive. On May 25, the North Koreans tested a nuclear weapon equal to the size of the Hiroshima bomb.
Despite these difficult circumstances, optimism for U.S. diplomacy should still exist. The big questions concerning U.S.-Korea relations such as, “What is needed to denuclearize the Korean Pennisula?” and, “Strategically what policies are needed by the U.S. administration to end the Korean War of 1950–1953, which has never formally ended?” remain critical. However, the Obama administration’s commitment to diplomacy by offering to hold bilateral talks seems like a step in the right direction. During the 2008 Presidential Election Campaign Senator Obama and Senator McCain often debated whether the United States should engage in direct negotiations with countries such as Iran or North Korea. Following his inauguration, President Obama has stood firm on his promise to engage directly with countries. If the special envoy is successful in negotiating the North Koreans back to the six-party talks, perhaps this model of U.S. diplomacy would also be successful in negotiations with other countries such as Iran. Though the media often depicts the situation with North Korea in a gloomy light, the Administration’s decision to meet unilaterally with North Korea should spark some optimism for U.S. policy in Northeast Asia.
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