A group of former US diplomats held closed-door talks over the weekend with senior Pyongyang officials, even as international efforts gather pace to further isolate North Korea, diplomatically and economically.
The two-day meeting in Kuala Lumpur, which was confirmed by the South Korean and US governments, was the latest in a series of unofficial talks commonly referred to as Track 2 that are closely monitored in the absence of any official contact between Washington and Pyongyang.
In July, North Korea cut off its only remaining official channel of diplomatic communications with the US in retaliation for US sanctions against its leader, Kim Jong-un.
Photo: EPA
The so-called “New York channel” had previously served as a key point of contact between North Korean and US diplomats at the UN.
US participants at the talks in the Malaysian capital included Robert Gallucci, who had led the US negotiating team that brokered a 1994 deal with Pyongyang on freezing its nuclear weapons program.
Among those on Pyongyang’s side were North Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Han Song-ryol, who previously served as deputy ambassador to the UN.
The meeting came after North Korea on Thursday last week test-fired a powerful new medium-range missile, and Leon Sigal, an academic specializing in the Koreas who attended the talks, said the North’s nuclear weapons program had dominated the discussion.
Sigal told South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency that North Korea had reiterated the need to sign a peace treaty with the US before moving on its weapons program.
The US side stressed that the moves to scrap the nuclear program had to come first, Sigal said.
LOOMING CHANGE
Under US President Barack Obama, the US has eschewed an official dialogue with North Korea, but with a looming change in the White House, there is growing speculation as to whether a new administration might adopt a different track.
Critics of the current policy have said sanctions and nonengagement have done nothing to prevent the North’s accelerated drive toward a credible nuclear deterrent that could directly threaten the continental US.
South Korea, which has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the US on Pyongyang, said that the talks with North Korea had no government involvement.
“We are aware that the US government maintains a firm stance that rushing into dialogue in the absence of North Korea’s will to denuclearize will only justify their wrong behavior,” a South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs official told reporters.
The UN Security Council is discussing a new resolution to punish North Korea over its fifth nuclear test last month — having already imposed tough economic measures after a fourth test in January.
The Track 2 talks have been taking place sporadically for years, with meetings in Singapore, Berlin, Beijing and elsewhere.
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