SEOUL, South Korea — Three days of meetings with top North Korean officials served as “exploratory talks” on how to restart stalled six- party negotiations on nuclear weapons, the first Obama administration envoy to visit Pyongyang said Thursday.
Special envoy Stephen Bosworth told a news conference here that he did not see North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il during his trip, nor did he request a meeting. U.S. officials had hoped to gain a promise from the regime to resume nuclear disarmament talks, which the North abandoned in 2006 when it conducted a nuclear test.
Bosworth, who arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday, seemed mildly optimistic that he had made progress in the North Korean capital.
“It remains to be seen when and how the six-party talks will resume,” he said. “North Korea has agreed on the central importance of six-party talks. . . . (They were) exploratory talks, not negotiations.”
“It was very useful,” he said.
Pyongyang has pushed for continued one-on-one nuclear talks with the United States rather than a return to the bargaining table on the six-party basis, which would also involve Japan, South Korea, China and Russia.
North Korea also wants to be considered a new member of the world’s nuclear-armed nations, a status that the U.S. and other nations say they will not bestow.
Analysts on Thursday said they had not expected any great results from the initial diplomatic meeting.
“Because this was the first official top-level meeting since the launch of the Obama administration, it could not yield an outcome right away,” said Koh Yu-Hwan, a North Korea expert at Dongguk University in Seoul.
“Both countries were expected to seek a middle ground. Perhaps they could have one more high-ranking talk before moving on to the six-party table.”
A statement from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry today said North Korea understands the need to resume the stalled international talks on ending its nuclear programs, and that it agrees to work with the United States to narrow unspecified “remaining differences.”
