US-North Korea nuclear talks: Why return to the table now?

The two-way talks the United States will hold with North Korea in New York later this week have the announced purpose of gauging Pyongyang’s seriousness about resuming long-stalled negotiations on its nuclear-weapons program.

But in announcing what she says will be an “exploratory meeting,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton left unmentioned what may be the US’s primary motivation: a desire to head off any new military provocations by a regime that tends to lash out when it is feeling ignored.

Last year the North brought the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war when it sank a South Korean warship, killing 46 sailors, and shelled a South Korean island near the two Koreas’ border. The spate of violence came a year after the six-party talks on the North’s nuclear program broke off, leaving Pyongyang further isolated.

US officials have been publicly and privately expressing their mounting concerns that the North may be contemplating more provocative acts to get back on the global agenda – and perhaps to extract some economic favors.

Secretary Clinton, who was traveling in Asia earlier this week, met for four hours Tuesday with Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, and afterward State Department officials said Clinton had stressed with Mr. Dai US concerns about further destabilizing acts by North Korea.

Clinton “underscored very clearly the risks that North Korea might be contemplating further provocations and the absolute need for China to weigh in strongly on Pyongyang to discourage such actions,” a senior State department official told reporters traveling with Clinton.

The urgency of some manner of preventive diplomacy has also surfaced in Congress.

At a confirmation hearing last week for Sung Kim, President Obama’s nominee as ambassador to South Korea, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts warned that, “Given North Korea’s recent irresponsible conduct, staying in a diplomatic holding pattern invites a dangerous situation to get even worse.”

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