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[webfact]

Exclusive - U.S. pursues direct diplomacy with North Korea despite Trump rejection

By Arshad Mohammed and Matt Spetalnick

 

FILE PHOTO - U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Joseph Yun (R) answers questions from reporters following meeting with Japan and South Korea chief nuclear negotiators to talk about North Korean issues at the Iikura guest house in Tokyo, Japan April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Toru Yamanaka/Pool/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is quietly pursuing direct diplomacy with North Korea, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday, despite U.S. President Donald Trump's public assertion that such talks are a waste of time.

 

Using the so-called "New York channel," Joseph Yun, U.S. negotiator with North Korea, has been in contact with diplomats at Pyongyang's United Nations mission, the official said, at a time when an exchange of bellicose insults between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has fuelled fears of military conflict.

 

While U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Oct. 17 said he would continue "diplomatic efforts ... until the first bomb drops," the official's comments were the clearest sign the United States was directly discussing issues beyond the release of American prisoners, despite Trump having dismissed direct talks as pointless.

 

There is no sign, however, that the behind-the-scenes communications have improved a relationship vexed by North Korea's nuclear and missile tests, the death of U.S. university student Otto Warmbier days after his release by Pyongyang in June and the detention of three other Americans.

 

Word of quiet engagement with Pyongyang comes despite Trump's comments, North Korea's weapons advances and suggestions by some U.S. and South Korean officials that Yun's interactions with North Koreans had been reined in.

 

"It has not been limited at all, both (in) frequency and substance," said the senior State Department official.

Among the points that Yun has made to his North Korean interlocutors is to "stop testing" nuclear bombs and missiles, the official said.

 

North Korea this year conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear detonation and has test-fired a volley of missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that, if perfected, could in theory reach the United States mainland.

 

The possibility that Pyongyang may be closer to attaching a nuclear warhead to an ICBM has alarmed the Trump administration, which in April unveiled a policy of "maximum pressure and engagement" that has so far failed to deter North Korea.

 

At the start of Trump's presidency, Yun's instructions were limited to seeking the release of U.S. prisoners.

"It is (now) a broader mandate than that," said the State Department official, declining, however, to address whether authority had been given to discuss North Korea's nuclear and missile programme.

 

SANCTIONS AND ENGAGEMENT

 

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has urged all United Nations members to fully and transparently implement sanctions against North Korea, which he said has emerged as a global threat.

 

Speaking at the United Nations on Sept. 19, Trump vowed to "totally destroy" North Korea if it threatened the United States or its allies, raising anxieties about the possibility of military conflict.

 

Twelve days later, after Tillerson said Washington was probing for a diplomatic opening, Trump said on Twitter that his chief diplomat was "wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man" - his mocking nickname for the North Korean leader.

 

Democratic U.S. senators introduced a bill on Tuesday they said would prevent Trump from launching a nuclear first strike on North Korea on his own, highlighting the issue days before the Republican's first presidential trip to Asia.

 

A high-ranking North Korean defector said in Washington on Tuesday that he backed the Trump administration's policy of pressuring Pyongyang through sanctions, coupled with "maximum engagement" with the leadership and increased efforts to get information into North Korea to educate its people.

 

"I strongly believe in the use of soft power before taking any military actions," Thae Yong Ho, chief of mission at Pyongyang's embassy in London until he defected in 2016, told the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

 

The New York channel is one of the few conduits the United States has for communicating with North Korea, which has itself made clear it has little interest in serious talks before it develops a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the continental United States.

 

The last high-level contact between Yun and the North Koreans was when he travelled to North Korea in June to secure the release of Warmbier, who died shortly after he returned home in a coma, the State Department official said.

 

The Trump administration has demanded North Korea release three other U.S. citizens: missionary Kim Dong Chul and academics Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song. 

 

    Warmbier’s death was a factor in the chilling of U.S.-North Korean contacts around that time but the biggest impact came from Pyongyang’s stepped-up testing, the official said.

 

The official said, however, that "the preferred endpoint is not a war but some kind of diplomatic settlement" and suggestions that Washington is setting up a binary choice for Pyongyang to capitulate diplomatically or military action were "misleading."

 

Diplomacy, the official said, "has a lot more room to go."

 

But Trump's threats against North Korea are believed to have complicated diplomatic efforts.

 

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Matt Spetalnick; additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Grant McCool)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-11-01

[darksidedog]

A negotiated settlement is the only realistic solution, though I am glad I am not on the team trying to do it. Its like irresistible force meets immovable object. Failure though, will result in the unacceptable loss of horrible numbers of innocent people.

[Get Real]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Trump's public assertion that such talks are a waste of time

He is a waste of good air. 

[Krataiboy]

Bad cop, good cop stuff.  No prizes for guessing which one Trump is.

[boomerangutang]

How can N.Koreans or any entity negotiate with Tillerson's team? They know, with one tweet, Trump can trash everything.

[Thaidream]

Trump is being ignored by both Tillerson and his negotiating team and if I had to guess that is what is being told to the North Koreans. Trump  just needs to keep quiet. We all know what a military engagement can do to North and South Korea so no reason to continually talk about it.

I am hoping that NKorea does not test anything while Trump is in Asia or for that matter at any time.  Time for everyone to back off and keep quiet. Kim already knows there are 3 US Aircraft carriers outside his front porch and a US nuclear submarine  sitting  in S Korea as well as an assortment of US Bombers a few hours away.

The Us knows there are thousands of NKorea Artillery pieces facing South with Seoul and its population in reach as well as NKorea short and intermediate missiles. The Americans can't get them all and both Kim and the Us know this.

The New York connection  has a few high ranking Koreans with direct access to Kim and negotiations are going on. Let's hope they are successful and everything ends well.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Thaidream

[craigt3365]

Best of luck.  Anything to get us away from where we are now.

[dunroaming]

My worry would be that as the evidence gathers against Trump he is likely to do some stupid knee jerk action against NK.

[Thaidream]

I have had the same thought- that Trump would initiate some type of military response as the noose tightens around him. Yet, I am hopeful that  Kelly ,Mattis and others will keep him in check and not allow him to do something like that. I don't think has anyone around him other than his immediate family that has any real respect for his decisions or his method of operation.

[baboon]

Here is an interesting talk by historian Bruce Cummings some might find of interest:

 

[baboon]

William Perry:

 

[craigt3365]

8 hours ago, baboon said:

Here is an interesting talk by historian Bruce Cummings some might find of interest:

 

this guy has low credibility.  Many reviews like this.  But understand why you'd gravitate towards this.  It's not reality.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/09/mother-of-all-mothers/303403/

Quote

But now we have a new book, in which Cumings likens North Korea to Thomas More's Utopia, and this time the wrongheadedness seems downright willful; it's as if he were so tired of being made to look silly by forces beyond his control that he decided to do the job himself. At one point in North Korea: Another Country (2004) we are even informed that the regime's gulags aren't as bad as they're made out to be, because Kim Jong Il is thoughtful enough to lock up whole families at a time.

 

Edited November 2, 2017 by craigt3365

[jerojero]

Left hand not know what right hand is doing. Or right hand is Trump therefore dismembered from the body, as it were.

Sent from my SM-G950W using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[Scott]

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