The new US envoy on North Korea is no stranger to nuclear diplomacy and finding ways to deal with prickly adversaries such as Iran. His new assignment, however, could be his toughest yet: persuading a defiant regime that boasts about its nuclear weapons to give up its arsenal in return for aid.
US ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Glyn Davies takes up his new job as US President Barack Obama’s administration deepens its engagement with Pyongyang — seeking to manage the risk of another military or nuclear provocation by the North. On Wednesday, the US announced new talks with the North.
Davies is a career diplomat who served as a US State Department deputy spokesman during the presidency of Bill Clinton, and before his current posting in Vienna he held a senior position in the department’s bureau for East Asia and the Pacific.
He will join the US delegation at talks with North Korea on Monday and Tuesday in Geneva, the second direct US-North Korean negotiations in less than three months. The delegation will be led by US Special Envoy to North Korea Stephen Bosworth, who has held the job since February 2009, but in a part-time capacity. Bosworth will then resign.
Also, the US this week began negotiations with North Korea on resuming the search for the remains of service members missing from the 1950-1953 Korean War. Coming after nearly two years of minimal contact, it is a flurry of diplomacy, but the administration stresses that despite the personnel change, its policy has not changed.
It wants to keep open channels of contact with North Korea, but will not resume multinational disarmament-for-aid negotiations unless Pyongyang takes concrete action to show it is serious about meeting its previous commitments on denuclearization.
Associates say Davies, as ambassador to the IAEA, has been effective in winning support for US-backed measures to pressure Iran over its nuclear program, although Tehran, which insists its program is for peaceful uses, shows little sign of heeding -international opinion.
“He’s a good appointment for the North Korea job, as it’s a heck of a challenge,” said former IAEA deputy director-general Olli Heinonen, who described Davies’ key strength as his ability in multilateral diplomacy to bring parties together.
“He’s a good communicator and willing to talk to adversaries,” Heinonen said. “He’s easygoing and fairly low-key, but can be tough when he needs to be.”
Others describe Davies as likable, with a good sense of humor, a consummate networker, extremely committed to US diplomacy, but also known to show his frustration if his efforts are not working.
Davies previously served as a deputy to Christopher Hill, who was the top US negotiator with North Korea under former US president George W. Bush. Davies himself lacks the deep Korea experience that Bosworth, a former -ambassador to Seoul, brought to the job.
Davies will be partnered with Clifford Hart, a China expert who will serve as US special envoy to the six-nation disarmament-for-aid talks that North Korea pulled out of in April 2009 after being censured for launching a long-range missile.
“Both are quick studies, and it won’t take them long to figure out that the North is not serious about denuclearization,” said Victor Cha, an expert on North Korea who was National Security Council director for Asia during the Bush administration.
Since pulling out of the six-party talks, which also include China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the US, North Korea has only grown more aggressive.
It conducted its second-ever nuclear test in 2009 and late last year disclosed a uranium enrichment program that could give it another means of generating fissile material for nuclear bombs. Last year, it also was blamed for two military attacks on rival South Korea that risked pitching the divided Korean Peninsula into war again.
Before the six-party talks can resume, the US wants to see concrete action that would include North Korea freezing its nuclear programs, allowing access to IAEA inspectors, a moratorium on nuclear and missile tests and a commitment not to attack South Korea again.
The US is in a delicate position. It does not want to reward bad behavior, but also is concerned that failure to engage North Korea could prompt North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s government to lash out.
As the US enters an election year, Obama would be keen to avoid the kind of security crisis that another military provocation or a nuclear test would present.
Kim’s regime probably will want to appear strong as it prepares for a leadership succession and the centennial next year of the birth of his father and North Korean founder Kim Il-sung. Some see North Korea’s willingness to return to six-party talks as a strategy not just to win aid, but de facto acceptance as a nuclear power.
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