28 September 2008 : Wall St Journal
U.S. Diplomat Plans North Korea Mission
By EVAN RAMSTAD
SEOUL -- North Korea this week will meet with South Korean military leaders and is likely to host a visit from a high-level U.S. official. It is a rare moment of direct talks with two countries North Korea considers to be enemies and comes at a time of great uncertainty about its leadership and direction.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the senior U.S. diplomat responsible for Asia, planned to travel to Pyongyang Wednesday. His mission: To encourage North Korean diplomats back to the table after they began to reverse steps to shut down a nuclear power plant that provides fuel for weapons, backtracking on a deal made in six-nation diplomatic talks last year.
People familiar with the planning discussed the trip, but details were still being ironed out late Sunday and neither country had officially announced it.
Meanwhile, North and South Korean military officials will meet Tuesday in the first direct contact on inter-Korean matters since South Korea's new president, Lee Myung-bak, took office in February. North Korea has harshly criticized Mr. Lee for tying the South's economic aid to the North's progress in giving up nuclear weapons, something South Korea's previous two presidents didn't do.
The two planned meetings come amid uncertainty about the health of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, who is believed to have suffered a stroke in August. It's unclear whether Mr. Kim is well enough to be involved in the day to-day workings of the North's government.
In the past two weeks, North Korea took steps to reassemble its sole nuclear plant, dealing a major setback to the so-called six-party diplomatic process. North Korean officials have said they made the move because the U.S. didn't lift the North from a terrorism blacklist that carries economic sanctions.
The U.S. wants North Korea to provide a process for verifying the North's nuclear-weapons activities to it and the other countries in the six-party process -- China, Japan, Russia and South Korea -- before it removes North Korea from the terror list.
In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday, Pak Kil Yon, North Korea's vice minister of foreign affairs, called the verification an "unjust demand" that wasn't agreed to in the six-party deal. U.S. officials note that removal from the terror list isn't part of the six-party deal either.
North Korea surprised South Korean officials with the request for the military meeting late last week. "I hope this will be the start of a productive relationship," Han Seung-soo, South Korea's prime minister, said at a diplomacy conference in Seoul Sunday. "We want a much more mature level of inter-Korean relations."
Mr. Han said South Korean officials aren't sure what the North wants to talk about. One potential topic is the July shooting of a South Korean tourist by a North Korean soldier near a resort along the inter-Korean border. South Korea shut the resort after the incident, cutting off a major source of revenue for North Korea's tiny tourism industry.
As part of the six-party process, North Korea met with South Korean delegates at the inter-Korean border on Sept. 19. But North Korea has refused other direct contact with the South since Mr. Lee took office, including offers of food assistance.
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