US and Allies Explore New Talks With North Korea

The Obama administration is pursuing a revival of six-party talks with North Korea, even as both governments on the Korean peninsula seem to be backing away from their recent military confrontation.

Ambassador Stephen Bosworth, the administration's point man for North Korea, and Sung Kim, special envoy for the six-party talks -- which have been suspended since 2008 -- were leaving Washington today for a four-day trip to South Korea, China and Japan to "discuss next steps on the Korean Peninsula" with senior government officials, the State Department said. Russia is the sixth participant in the talks focused on the North's nuclear program, which have been off much more than on since they began in 2003.

Meanwhile, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak today took another step away from the martial threats that followed last month's deadly exchange of artillery fire and toward a resumption of diplomacy.

"I remind the North that the path toward peace is yet open. The door for dialogue is still open," Lee said during a nationally broadcast New Year's address. "Nuclear weapons and military adventurism must be discarded. The North must work toward peace and cooperation not only with rhetoric but also with deeds."

In addition to threatening strong retaliation against future North Korean aggression, Lee held out a carrot to an impoverished country desperate for South Korean aid, saying Seoul has "both the will and the plan to drastically enhance economic cooperation" in partnership with the U.S., Japan and others.

Pyongyang, too, called for new dialogue in an official Jan. 1 newspaper editorial that traditionally serves as a vehicle for annual North Korean policy statements.

"The danger of war should be removed and peace safeguarded in the Korean Peninsula," the message said. "If a war breaks out on this land, it will bring nothing but a nuclear holocaust."

It isn't clear how or when new talks would begin.

The Obama administration didn't respond last week to Lee's first suggestion that talks be revived, and the State Department offered no details on this week's mission to South Korea, China and Japan, other than the itinerary.

Each round of previous six-party negotiations was protracted and marked by frequent fusillades of bellicose North Korean rhetoric, and rare breakthroughs produced North Korean commitments that were never fully kept.

But North Korea, once again experiencing massive famine, may be especially desperate to make a deal, which could help explain the recent series of provocative actions it has taken. The North has frequently fired missiles, tested nuclear devices or made grandiose threats to get the world's attention.

The North may also be under increased pressure to cooperate from China, its primary patron and supplier of financial and humanitarian aid.

China was slow to react to the shelling last month, but may have been irked by how much the spike in inter-Korean tensions pushed South Korea, Japan and possibly others in the region into a tighter embrace of the U.S.

Another variable in play is the apparent transfer of power within North Korea's ruling family. The ailing Kim Jong Il has set up his third son, Kim Jong Un, as his successor, promoting the young man with scant military experience to a four-star general and officially surrounding him with family members in power who can act as regents.

Not coincidentally, perhaps, North Korea is promoting 2012 -- the centennial birthday of the deified Kim Il Sung, father of the nation -- as the year when the nation will assume its role as a "powerful, great and prosperous country."