Bosworth embarks on Asian tour on resumption of 6-way talks: State Dept.

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, May 5 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen
Bosworth is set to fly to Seoul later this week to discuss resumption of the
six-party talks, moribund in the wake of North Korea's rocket launch.
"An interagency delegation will travel to Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and Moscow for
consultations with counterparts from China, the Republic of Korea, Japan and
Russia on North Korea issues," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said. The
delegation will be led by Bosworth.
Accompanied by Sung Kim, special envoy for the six-party talks, Bosworth will
arrive in Seoul Friday after visits to Beijing, Wood said, adding the delegation
will also fly to Tokyo Monday and Moscow Tuesday before returning to Washington
on May 14.
The spokesman said Bosworth "has no current plans to visit North Korea," but left
the door open. "The delegation's meetings schedule is still being arranged."
Bosworth had hoped to visit Pyongyang in early March during the first Asian trip
since his taking office in February, but the travel proposal was rejected by the
North for reasons unclear.
Some observers speculate the North's rejection stemmed from Bosworth's status as
a part-timer, while others say Pyongyang is angling for higher-level bilateral
negotiations with Washington. Bosworth concurrently serves as the dean of the
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Boston.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last week that it "seems implausible
if not impossible" that North Korea will return to the six-party talks.
In echoing Clinton's theme, Wood hinted last week that the U.S. could undertake
bilateral nuclear negotiations with North Korea.
"If we have to look at other options, you know, diplomatic options, we certainly
will," Wood said at that time. "There is skepticism about the North's intentions,
and it doesn't appear likely that the North, at least from the signs we have seen
so far, is willing to return to the negotiating table."
Wood, however, this time reiterated the importance of the six-party talks.
"I think we're looking first and foremost to try to convince the North to come
back to the negotiating table," he said. "The six-party talks, as we've said, are
a viable framework. The North has some obligations under that six-party
framework."
Under a six-party deal, North Korea had been disabling its nuclear facilities in
return for heavy fuel oil shipments and other benefits.
North Korea, however, reversed the disabling process soon after the U.N. Security
Council's condemnation of its April 5 rocket launch and imposition of financial
and trade embargoes on three North Korean companies for their involvement in the
trade of missile parts and other weapons of mass destruction.
North Korea insists it launched a satellite into space and has since threatened
to conduct further nuclear and ballistic missile tests and restart its nuclear
facilities unless the U.N. apologizes for the rebuke.
Gary Samore, U.S. President Barack Obama's policy coordinator on weapons of mass
destruction nonproliferation, has said that he believes North Korea will conduct
another nuclear test, adding that the multilateral nuclear talks will go nowhere
in the short term.
North Korea detonated its first nuclear device in 2006, a test that the U.S. and
its allies see as a partial success, and fired long-range rockets in 1998, 2006
and 2009.
Some analysts say the North's recent move is an attempt to derail the six-party
talks and revive bilateral talks with the U.S., discontinued after President
George W. Bush's inauguration in 2001.
The U.S. has relied very much on China, North Korea's staunchest communist ally,
for its influence at the table, yet the talks have been on and off for six years
without a major breakthrough.
Some analysts say North Korea, for its part, needs to check the growing influence
of China, which has supplied oil, food and other necessities to its impoverished
neighbor.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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