A Turning Point For U.S. Korea Talks?

There apparently is good news coming out of the talks between the United States and North Korea. The BBC:

The US and North Korea have had “very good” talks aimed at normalising relations between the two nations, the top US negotiator has said.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill was speaking after the second day of the talks in New York.

He said there was a “sense of optimism” over last month’s deal on steps to end North Korea’s nuclear programme.

Earlier, a US official said the North must declare all aspects of its nuclear activities for the deal to hold.

“These were very good discussions,” Mr Hill told reporters after the second day of the talks with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan.

“I would say there was a sense of optimism [on] both sides that we will get through this 60-day period and we will achieve all of our objectives that are set out in the 13 February agreement,” he said.

According to Time, this represents a major shift:

U.S. policy toward North Korea has now officially flip-flopped: A little over five years ago, President Bush declared an end to the Clinton-era policy of offering inducements for good behavior by the North Koreans, questioning whether Pyongyang could be trusted to keep a deal. But this week’s talks between the two sides show that Washington’s diplomatic embrace of Pyongyang is tighter than at any point since then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright offered a champagne toast to the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il in late 2000.

In New York on March 4, U.S. and North Korean diplomats began discussing normalization of relations, while Treasury Department officials in Macau were in discussions aimed at allowing Banco Delta Asia to unfreeze North Korean accounts frozen at Washington’s behest. (The accounts allegedly belong to high ranking North Korean officials involved in a variety of illicit businesses, including narcotics smuggling and the counterfeiting of United States currency.)

At a recent appearance in Washington, lead U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill was asked, facetiously, which was harder: negotiating with Pyongyang or within the Administration to get a “coherent” policy on North Korea. Hill laughed, but it was no joke. Those in the Administration who have argued for a strategy of engagement rather than isolation appear to be ascendant, particularly since the most recent round of Six-Party talks in Beijing on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. There, North Korea agreed to shut down its Yongbon nuclear reactor, which produces the fissile material for its nuclear weapons, in exchange for a variety of economic and diplomatic benefits. These included an emergency delivery of 50,000 tons of fuel oil to generate electricity, an end to the financial sanctions that had enraged Pyongyang’s leadership, and the one-on-one discussions with the U.S. long demanded by North Korea but resisted by the Administration.

The good news here: it does show a flexibility on the part of the Bush administration — at least on the issue of Korea.