INCHEON, South Korea — Top U.S. officials are calling on North Korea to follow through on its recent statements to reopen dialogue with South Korea.
“We believe that serious negotiations must be at the heart of any strategy for dealing with North Korea, and we look forward to being able to launch those at a reasonably early time,” Ambassador Stephen Bosworth, special representative for North Korea policy, said during a brief press conference as he arrived here for talks with high-level South Korean officials.
Bosworth, who also will travel to Japan and China during his four-day Asian visit, did not elaborate on the substance of his scheduled talks with leaders of the other countries, but said he was not shopping around any list of conditions for North Korea to return to the dormant six-party talks on the rogue nation’s nuclear program.
“I have no conditions in my pocket, and no list in my pocket,” he told reporters at Incheon International Airport. “We are here to consult and coordinate our positions on the way forward in dealing with North Korea.”
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said Monday that U.S. officials are cautiously optimistic that relations on the Korean peninsula might be warming.
“We have noted public statements about the potential for improved dialogue between North and South,” he said as part of his daily media briefing in Washington, D.C. “Obviously, that can be important and we’ll see whether the North follows through on that offer for dialogue.”
“Obviously, there are a number of things that North Korea has to do,” Crowley said. “Easing tensions with the South is one such step. Ceasing provocative actions is another step, showing a seriousness of purpose and following through on its commitments.”
Crowley said trying to get a read on what North Korean leaders are thinking is “challenging,” given their history of threats and “bellicose language.”
“To some extent, what we’re hearing publicly is promising,” he said. “However, words have to be followed by actions, and we will be looking to see what North Korea actually does, not just what it says.”
While in South Korea, Bosworth is to meet with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan and Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Ambassador Wi Sung-lac.
Bosworth arrived in the wake of a dramatic exchange of New Year’s messages of peace and hope delivered by leaders in the North and South, mixed in with what has become the almost-routine exchange of threats, warnings and vitriol.
After a year in which the North allegedly sank a South Korean warship, killing 46 sailors, and took responsibility for the shelling of a border island that left four dead, the official Korean Central News Agency carried a New Year’s Day editorial that suggested North Korea was open to a resumption of the six-party talks.
“The danger of war should be removed and peace safeguarded on the Korean peninsula,” the message said, while still warning that any conflict would , “bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust.”
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, in separate speeches in recent days reportedly said he was confident that peace could be established on the peninsula.
“I remind the North that the path toward peace is yet open,” he said, according to the Yonhap News Agency. “The door for dialogue is still open.”
The conciliatory comments from the South Korean president represented a sharp contrast to his hard-line and somewhat provocative public positions since the Nov. 23 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.
Bosworth said the U.S. has no concerns about Lee’s recent tough stance, echoing statements made in recent weeks by other American officials who have stressed that South Korea does not need their approval to defend itself against any future North Korean acts of aggression.
Bosworth’s Asian tour comes just ahead of President Barack Obama’s scheduled Jan. 19 meeting in Washington with Chinese President Hu Jintao, where North Korea is expected to be a primary topic of discussion.
In the wake of the North Korean attack on Yeonpyeong Island, China called for a resumption of the six-party talks, but U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials said they first wanted to see more concrete steps taken by the North toward dismantling of its nuclear program before returning to the bargaining table.
Asked if China – North Korea’s most important ally - might be changing its position in terms on how to proceed in relation to the North, the ambassador said, “I’ll let the Chinese speak for themselves on that.
“I think, by and large, we’ve been working together with them very effectively,” he said. “That is an important relationship for both countries. I think we share a large number of common interests around the world, and in the region, and in particular on the Korean peninsula.”
