A senior U.S. diplomat met last week with North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations in the highest-level bilateral talks since President Bush denounced North Korea as part of an “axis of evil.”
The State Department said Friday in Washington that Charles Pritchard, the Bush administration’s special envoy for North Korea, met Wednesday with Ambassador Pak Gil Yon and agreed to continue the discussions later.
There was no breakthrough, department spokesman Richard Boucher said, and the North Korean government has not yet accepted a U.S. offer for negotiations at a higher level. But the encounter appeared to ease a growing war of words.
“Both sides agreed to continue their discussions at this level from time to time,” Boucher said. “And we remain willing to explore North Korea’s receptivity to accepting our proposal for a dialogue.”
The administration offered in June to open negotiations with North Korea as part of a strategy to curb that country’s development of weapons of mass destruction in return for economic help. Last month in South Korea, President Bush wondered aloud why Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, had rebuffed the U.S. proposal.
Relations between the countries have been icy since Bush in January identified North Korea–with Iran and Iraq–as being part of an “axis of evil.”
