NEW YORK — The Obama administration and its top Asian allies agreed Monday that direct U.S.-North Korean talks may be the best way to bring North Korea back to the nuclear negotiating table, American officials said.
But they also suggested that more groundwork needed to be laid by China before President Barack Obama would decide to send his North Korea envoy to Pyongyang for such discussions.
The officials spoke after talks between Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and senior Australian, Japanese and South Korean diplomats on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session.
Meanwhile, in a speech in New York, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak proposed a “grand bargain” with the North to restart the nuclear talks and end its atomic-arms program. The plan would give the North economic and political incentives, including a security guarantee.
