State Department: US to meet North Koreans in Beijing

Associated Press ^ | February 13, 2012 | unattributed

[Hunton Peck]

A U.S. envoy will hold talks with North Korea on its nuclear program in Beijing next week, the first such negotiations since the death of the nation's longtime leader Kim Jong Il.

Glyn Davies, the U.S. envoy on North Korea, will meet Feb. 23 with North Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters Monday.

It will be the third round of bilateral talks since last summer, aimed at restarting six-nation aid-for-disarmament negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program. The reclusive nation pulled out of the multi-nation talks in 2009.

But it will be the first such contact since Kim died Dec. 17 and power passed to his untested youngest son, Kim Jong Un. It could signal the new regime's willingness to deal with Washington and address international concerns over its nuclear and missile programs.

"We thought that it was a good time to see where they are, and it makes good sense to give them an opportunity to see if they are ready to answer the questions that we have," Nuland said.

Shortly before the elder Kim died of a heart attack, the...

***

Since pulling out of the six-party talks three years ago, the North has conducted a long-range rocket test and its second-ever nuclear test in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. It has also unveiled a uranium enrichment program that could give it a new means for making fissile material that could go into a nuclear weapon.

[Hunton Peck]

They're going to restart the talks about restarting the talks. Meanwhile, deep in bunkers under the starving nation...

[Eric in the Ozarks]

We’ve been down this road before.

[brivette]

reminds me of the Peanuts comic football routine.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I can predict the outcome of these “talks.”

First, the US will show sincerity by sending $5 million worth of food, which will promptly be scarfed up by the NK Army.

Next, SK will have to do penance for past violations of something or other...

[mkjessup]

Let’s send George W. Appeaser to represent us in the ‘talks’, since he was the one pushing those time wasting negotiations in the first place, North Korea might even honor him with a medal or something for taking the NorK’s off the State Department terrorist list, and generally selling out those pesky North Korean peasants.