North Korea

Despite initial reports that next to nothing was accomplished during last week's discussions between U.S. and North Korean officials in New York and San Diego, an administration official told The Cable that substantial progress was made in behind-the-scenes talks between Sung Kim, the State Department's special envoy to the six party talks, and Ri Gun, North Korea's lead negotiator.

According to an account from an official with access to information on the negotiations, which a second source has confirmed, the U.S. side put forth a proposal with three main conditions. The first was that the North Koreans agree to have exactly two formal bilateral meetings with the United States before returning to a multilateral forum. The North Koreans agreed. They had previously said they would return to the multilateral talks only if the bilateral meetings went well.

The second condition put forth by the U.S. was that Ambassador Stephen Bosworth, who has been invited repeatedly to Pyongyang, would be able to meet with Kong Sok Ju, North Korea's first vice foreign minister. According to the official, the North Koreans also had no problem with that.
 
Bosworth's visit would be seen as a failure unless some demonstrable progress was made and it is widely believed that only the top officials in Kim Jong Il's regime have real negotiating authority. By meeting with Kong, Bosworth could leapfrog Ri and his boss ,Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Kye Gwan.
 
The third condition put forth by the U.S. side is the main sticking point. The United States wanted North Korea to abide by its previous commitments, namely the Sept. 19, 2005 declaration in which the North Koreans committed "to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to IAEA safeguards.

Here the North Koreans demurred, according to the official, saying they wanted to resume talks based on the idea of "denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," a nuanced but important distinction.

One Korea hand who closely follows the issue explains the difference:

"Denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is a formulation that has been used in previous U.S.-DPRK joint documents including the October 2000 communiqué. It broadens the scope of what we are talking about to include more than just North Korea. That may sound silly since we all know there are no nuclear weapons anymore in South Korea, but the North sees this as a political issue of balance."

So if "denuclearization" is something the U.S. side has agreed to in the past, the obvious question is, why not just agree to use that as the basis for negotiations now? One administration official who is not directly involved in the discussion said the U.S. side could be trying to set limits on what the initial resumption of talks should encompass.
 
"Of course, we want to reframe to address [denuclearization] at some point, though I thought we really just wanted reaffirmation of the Sept. 5 declaration, rather than fighting the bigger fight right now," the official said.
 
The outside-the-government Korea hand offered a more pessimistic interpretation:

"If the administration is sticking, it may be because it doesn't see any immediate political benefit to beginning talks since there is bound to be domestic criticism and there is no guarantee of achieving quick results. There is good reason to be skeptical about any North Korean offers. But at some point the issue becomes, how high do you set the bar at this very initial stage of contacts?"

Despite reports out of Asia, no deal was struck during interactions between U.S. and North Korean negotiators at the conference in San Diego this week and North Korean representatives did not indicate in any public way that they were altering their position related to resuming the Six Party Talks.

The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest daily newspaper, reported Thursday that North Korean negotiator Ri Gun and U.S. Special Envoy Sung Kim agreed in principle to arrange a visit to Pyongyang by the end of November for Ambassador Stephen Bosworth.

Not so, administration sources tell The Cable. A State Department official said that no further bilateral meetings between the U.S. and North Korea are scheduled and it's not yet clear whether or not Sung Kim will go to New York tomorrow to meet with Ri Gun one more time before he leaves the country (many experts expect Kim to make the trip).

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters today, "The U.S. has made no decision for Ambassador Bosworth to accept the invitation of North Korea to have bilateral talks."

The Yomiuri report speculated that the Bosworth visit could lead to a resumption of the Six Party Talks before the end of the year. Insiders repeatedly warn that would only be possible if North Korea affirmed its commitment to the Sept. 19 declaration where it pledged to pursue nuclear disarmament.

One State Department source told The Cable that Ri made no such concessions in San Diego, at least in the group sessions. In fact, if he would have made any such statements, it would directly contradict public statements of Kim Jong Il, the Dear Leader.

State Department Korea desk chief Kurt Tong and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell will go to Singapore November 6 to attend the beginning of the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. President Obama will attend the end of the conference Nov. 14 and 15.

President Obama today nominated of Philip Coyle, a leading critic of Bush administration missile defense schemes, to be a top White House scientific advisor.

Coyle, who was the head weapons tester at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration, was nominated to become the Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. There he will lead a team tasked with giving scientific advice to Obama on a range of national security issues and will report to Director John Holdren.

Since his last tour at the Pentagon, Coyle has been a leading analyst on weapons systems for the Center for Defense Information, a component of the World Security Institute, a defense-minded think thank. From that perch, he's been actively involved in several of the national security debates involving advanced technology and a staunch watchdog on the missile defense system the Bush administration rushed to deploy throughout its tenure.

Coyle has often pointed out that the testing done by the Pentagon on ballistic missile defense components since 2001 has been either shoddy or thin. Moreover, he has repeatedly questioned the basic rationale for investing billions to deploy ballistic missile defense around the world, especially in Eastern Europe.

"In my view, Iran is not so suicidal as to attack Europe or the United States with missiles," he testified before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee in February, "But if you believe that Iran is bound and determined to attack Europe or America, no matter what, then I think you also have to assume that Iran would do whatever it takes to overwhelm our missile defenses, including using decoys to fool the defenses, launching stealthy warheads, and launching many missiles, not just one or two."

Coyle has often argued that the Bush administration rushed to deploy missile defense systems around the world to build momentum and keep money flowing into the program. He has repeatedly said that the Missile Defense Agency has been amassing hardware that is either not aligned with the threat or can't be relied on in case of an actual emergency.

Over $120 billion has been spent on ballistic missile defense since its inception during the Reagan administration.

Coyle's views line up with Ellen Tauscher, who was then the subcommittee chairwoman but who is now Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, which oversees missile defense diplomacy.

Tauscher was part of the decision making process that led to huge changes in the Bush administration plans for missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Obama plan now calls for more short and medium range systems, most of them mobile. These are changes Coyle has also supported.

Coyle must now be confirmed by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The vetting and confirmation process could take months.

When North Korea's lead nuclear negotiator Ri Gun (left) makes his tour of the United States next week, all eyes will be on the State Department, which is planning to make the first face-to-face, government-to-government contact with Kim Jong Il's regime in quite a long time.

Ri arrives in New York today and then will be in San Diego early next week to attend what's called the Northeast Asian Cooperation Dialogue. He will then come back to New York later in the week to hold "track two" (nonofficial) meetings organized by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP), a private insiders' policy group that has been key in organizing such meetings in the past.

The State Department issued the visa for Ri but has been extremely cagey about who will be going to meet with him. Spokesman Ian Kelly said today that State Department officials will probably meet with him in both cities, but no final decision has been made on who that would be.

The hands-on favorite among Korea watchers is Sung Kim, who is officially titled the "special envoy for the six-party talks." Those talks have been stalled since North Korea unilaterally withdrew in April. Kim was previously deputy to former lead negotiator Chris Hill, then assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs. He met with Ri in New York last November. Another leading contender is Korea desk chief Kurt Tong.

Conspicuously absent from the discussion over who will meet Ri is Stephen Bosworth, Obama's choice for special representative for North Korea policy. Bosworth has been handling the North Korea issue for State part time, maintaining his other full-time gig as dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

The North Koreans have issued repeated invitations for Bosworth to visit Pyongyang, invitations that have gone completely unanswered. The choice of Bosworth, a sacred cow of the Asia policy community for decades, was seen by many as an effort to smooth out relations over the issue with allies Japan and South Korea, countries to which Bosworth has deep ties.

There is a long tradition of engaging the North Koreans through unofficial channels and by using experts that Pyongyang prefers as proxies, such as University of Georgia professor Han Park or journalist Selig Harrison. NCAFP has been at the center of what's called the "New York channel," which sometimes includes contact with North Korea's delegation at the United Nations. The key figure in NCAFP is professor and author Donald Zagoria.

If and when Kim or another U.S. official meets with Ri, the implication is that they would be setting the stage for a resumption of talks, even though the North Korean and U.S. positions on terms of discussion are still far apart. The Obama administration is insisting that any bilateral talks be in the context of the multilateral process and be based on the previous agreement North Korea signed promising to denuclearize.

The North Koreans, however, want direct talks with the U.S. without promising anything and without including regional powers. Kelly, the State Department spokesman, acknowledged that next week's meetings are essentially that.

"This is really kind of a hybrid," said Kelly, "It's not just track two. It's really a combination."

TEH ENG KOON/AFP/Getty Images

In which we scour the transcript of the State Department's daily presser so you don't have to. Here are the highlights of today and yesterday's briefings by spokesman Ian Kelly:

• The State Department didn't necessarily "pressure" the Palestinian authority to defer taking the Goldstone Report  to the U.N. Human Rights Council but the U.S. "respects" the decision as useful in not throwing another wrench into the drive to restart the peace process. No comment on reports that Hillary Clinton told Abu Mazen to sit on the report.
• Special Envoy Geoge Mitchell is headed back to the region this week.
• Kelly denied that the president's refusal to meet with the Dalai Lama today was a signal that the administration is taking a hands-off approach to confronting the PRC on issues such as human rights and Tibetan autonomy. "I think these are two separate issues, the president's decision to meet with the Dalai Lama and the path that our relationship with China is on," Kelly said. Right...
• No reaction yet to the announcement by the North Koreans that they are willing to return to the Six Party Talks, as long as they get a bilateral meeting with the U.S. first. "If we're on a path leading to our goal, of course, that's encouraging," Kelly said, "But I'm not going to characterize it, until we talk to our Chinese partners."
• South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint went to Tegucigalpa over the weekend to meet with the de facto regime against the wishes of the State Department and Senate Foreign Relations chairman John Kerry. He took with him Congressmen Peter Roskam, Doug Lamborn and Aaron Schock. House Foreign Affairs ranking Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen will soon meet with de facto president Roberto Micheletti. The State Department didn't set up the meetings, but they did pick up the lawmakers from the airport and drive them around, Kelly said.
• Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson (hey oh!) and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State William Fitzgerald expressed "deep outrage" directly to Guinea's Foreign Minister Loua and junta leader Dadis Camara as the fallout from the September 28 massacre there continues. The U.S. is "engaged" and has issued a travel warning, but no specific other diplomatic initiatives to announce.
• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi today in Washington today.

As the Obama administration struggles about whether or not to reengage the North Koreans by sending Amb. Stephen Bosworth to Pyongyang,  experts over at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies are getting ready to release a new prescription for U.S. policy there.

The paper (pdf), principally authored by former North Korea negotiator Joel Wit, lays out a framework for renewing an approach with Kim Jong Il's regime. It argues that the United States must take action before a new and unpredictable North Korean leader ascends, that America must live with a nuclear North Korea without accepting its status as a nuclear state for the time being and that the Obama administration must avoid overreaching for ambitious goals while seeking incremental steps that could improve relations.

"The idea, when we started this report in April just after the missile test, was to chart a course back to dialogue that the administration could use in the future," said Wit, "since we all knew that was what would eventually happen."

One idea that apparently won't work is South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's suggestion of a "Grand Bargain" with the North to resolve all outstanding issues, which the North Koreans rejected recently through their public statement Web site.

In which we scour the transcript of the State Department's daily presser so you don't have to. Here are the highlights of today's briefing by spokesman Ian Kelly:

• Hillary Clinton had meetings in New York today with the foreign ministers of South Korea, Czech Republic, Turkmenistan, and Japan. Also meeting with the presidents of Costa Rica and Georgia and participate in a trilateral dialogue with Japan and Australia.

• Obama's trilateral meeting Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas tomorrow on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly may not actually produce any results, but it will "advance our efforts towards our ultimate goal" and "it shows that [Obama] is personally engaged in the effort," Kelly said. The U.N. Security Council meeting will be the first at the head of state level in some time.

• President Manuel Zelaya has returned to Honduras! "All I can say is reiterate our almost daily call on both sides to exercise restraint and refrain from any kind of action that would have any possible outcome in violence," said Kelly, adding "Of course, we believe that he's the democratic -- democratically elected and constitutional leader of Honduras." Senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C., disagrees.

• No comment on reports that the State Department is sitting on 25 visa applications from Iran.

• There are no plans to meet with the North Koreans in any way in New York this week and still no decision about whether Ambassador Stephen Bosworth will accept Kim Jong Il's invitation to travel there.

Kansas Senator Sam Brownback is preparing yet another maneuver in his fight to thwart any rapprochement between the United States and North Korea.

Brownback, who carries the banner for those who believe confronting the North Korean regime is preferable to engaging it, is planning to offer a new piece of legislation aimed at pressuring the State Department to put the hermitic Stalinist state back on its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The legislation, which he will introduce this session, aims to kick the chair out from under the State Department's official explanation as to why the administration can't relist North Korea, even though North Korea didn't live up to the bargain it struck with the Bush administration, which delisted the country in 2008.

"The administration is saying that legally they do not have the authority to [relist North Korea], but we want to give them back the authority to do it so it will be clear that this is a choice they are making," Brownback told The Cable in an interview. "This would be so they can't hide behind the lawyers."

In fact, that is State's explanation, as laid out by spokesman Ian Kelly in a May press briefing.

"In order to be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, the secretary of state must determine that the government of North Korea has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism. The United States will follow the provisions of the law as the facts warrant," Kelly said.

Brownback discussed his upcoming bill with Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, who gave no response, Brownback said.

This is only the latest bill Brownback has offered in his mission to influence North Korea policy. He introduced a bill in July that would have reimposed sanctions and put North Korea back on the list, but this one is more "realistic," he said.

He'll try to attach his language to a bill that's already moving, but actually passing the legislation is unlikely. In the end, it's not all that important whether it passes or not.

Brownback is making a policy point and continuing his ongoing feud with the EAP Bureau at State, which included him holding up the Campbell nomination this summer.

But Brownback's fight with EAP goes back much further than Campbell. He held up the nomination of Kathleen Stephens in 2008 to become ambassador to South Korea in order to get concessions from then Assistant Secretary Chris Hill, including getting Jay Leftkowitz, the oft-ignored human rights envoy on North Korea, a seat at the table.

The Kansas senator then held up Hill's nomination to become ambassador to Iraq because Hill failed to deliver on any of the promises he made to Brownback during the Stephens affair.

Brownback makes no secret of his ultimate goal, to stop any new talks with North Korea before they start, in light of Pyongyang's saber-rattling and nuclear brinksmanship.

"Now we're going to engage with them?" he said, "Now's the time to be much more strong against them."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in June that she wants to see "recent evidence of their support for international terrorism" before she would relist them. That's not likely, because North Korea's suspected nuclear and missile exports to dictatorial regimes don't technically qualify as terrorism.

What did qualify was North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, which has never been resolved, but that's an entirely separate issue.

File Photo: AFP/Getty Images