US confirms envoy's trip to North Korea

Nov 10, 2009, 19:52 GMT

Washington - The US State Department has confirmed a special envoy will travel to Pyongyang likely by the end of this year in an effort to persuade North Korea to return to the six-nation nuclear talks.

Stephen W Bosworth, appointed by President Barack Obama to take the lead in dealing the North Koreans, will be making his first trip to the Stalinist state.

State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said Bosworth's mission will be part of the larger negotiations in the six-nation process that has been at an impasse since the beginning of the year, when Pyongyang withdrew from the discussions that also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

The United States expects North Korea to return to the table and reaffirm its commitment to a 2005 agreement to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, Crowley said.

'We are not going to reward North Korea simply for returning to the six-party talks. We will be looking to see if they are prepared to take the kinds of affirmative steps that they had previously agreed to.

'We are very clear-eyed about this. North Korea has a history of coming back to negotiations and expecting to be rewarded just for simply coming back for discussions,' he added.

   The announcement comes as Obama begins a four-nation tour of Asia this week, with stops in Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea.

   In recent months, North Korea has signalled its interest in one-on-one talks with the United States. Washington maintained it is open to direct dialogue - but only in the context of the six-nation format.

   In August, former US president Bill Clinton travelled to North Korea to secure the release of two imprisoned American journalists and raised hope for a thaw in relations and progress to resolve the stalemate over Pyongyang's nuclear activities.

   Last month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States would never establish normalized relations with North Korea as long as the Stalinist state has nuclear weapons.

   'Current sanctions will not be relaxed until Pyongyang takes verifiable, irreversible steps toward complete denuclearization,' Clinton said. 'Its leaders should be under no illusion that the United States will ever have normal, sanctions-free relations with a nuclear-armed North Korea.'