08 September 2009
United States Weighing North Korean Offer of Bilateral Talks
Washington — The United States is considering its response to North Korea’s invitation for bilateral talks, but a senior Obama administration official says any bilateral engagement would not be a substitute for the established multilateral format known as the Six-Party Talks.
In remarks to reporters in Tokyo September 8, Special Representative for North Korea Policy Stephen Bosworth said U.S. officials need to decide if a direct bilateral contact would be useful and timely under the current circumstances and would have the full support of South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan, who, along with the United States and North Korea, are members of the Six-Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear activities.
“As we have indicated in the past, the United States is willing to engage with North Korea on a bilateral basis, and we are currently considering how best to respond to a North Korean invitation for bilateral talks,” Bosworth said.
However, he added, such talks would not substitute “in any way” for multilateral engagement or “the re-ignition of the Six-Party Talks.”
The special envoy added that his consultations in the region with other members of the Six-Party Talks would inform the Obama administration’s response to the North Korean offer.
According to news reports, North Korea invited Bosworth and Ambassador Sung Kim, the State Department’s special envoy for the Six-Party Talks, to hold direct bilateral talks. At the same time, Pyongyang reportedly sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council during the week of August 31 stating that it is in the final stages of “weaponizing” its plutonium and has come close to successfully enriching uranium.
Bosworth told reporters in Tokyo that North Korea’s partners in the Six-Party Talks have a “very solid agreement” on maintaining the elimination of nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula as “the core objective and essential goal” of their engagement with Pyongyang.
South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and the United States are also “very attached to the Six-Party process as a mechanism for achieving denuclearization,” he said.
The five countries are also committed to the full implementation of the U.N. Security Council resolutions that imposed sanctions on North Korea in response to its nuclear and missile programs, Bosworth said.
Asked about the August 30 election victory by the Democratic Party of Japan that is ending a long period of rule by the country’s Liberal Democratic Party, Bosworth said he believes the United States and Japan will continue to work together on their approach to North Korea.
“I anticipate that our relationships with the new government will be as good as our relationships with the outgoing government,” he said.
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