Many people in the Syracuse community who have served in the U.S. military in a tense Korea have a particular interest in political developments there. The future for Korea is at a delicate phase now with the transition in government to a new and young leader. The Obama administration has lost little time to test the waters in dealing with the new North Korean leader as seen with recent meetings in China. Jane Perlez has reported for the International Herald Tribune "U.S. and North Korea Hold Talks in China."
A senior American negotiator has said the first official talks between the United States and North Korea since Kim Jong-un came to power were “serious and substantial." These talks, which have been described by the Obama administration as exploratory, have been seen as a way to test whether the new leader was prepared to meet conditions which would allow for a resumption of six-nation negotiations aimed at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Glyn T. Davies, the American negotiator, met his counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, who is a veteran North Korean nuclear official, for two sessions on Thursday in Beijing, one at the American Embassy and the other at the North Korean Embassy. The two also met for dinner Thursday night, and they plan to return to formal talks on Friday.
Perlez has gone on to report Mr. Davies has said the issues covered Thursday included nuclear matters and nutritional assistance. North Korea became the eighth nation to have detonated a nuclear device in 2006. Than in 2009, it announced that it had successfully conducted a second nuclear test, in spite of intensified international warnings. A former director of Los Alamos National Laboratories, Siegfried S. Hecker, visited North Korea and was shown an industrial scale uranium enrichment site previously unknown to the West in 2010. In the two years prior to his death Kim Jong-il visited China three times. It is said by a Chinese official with close ties to North Korea that Beijing pledged to back his son Kim Jong-un as the next leader on the condition that North Korea would refrain from provocative actions, such as a third nuclear detonation. Nevertheless, China and the United States do not share all of the same objectives in dealing with North Korea. The United States desire to see an end to the authoritarian leadership in North Korea is not shared by China.
The Obama administration moved ahead with a move to try to lessen tensions with North Korea by offering nutritional assistance as a humanitarian gesture to the most needy, including children, the elderly and nursing mothers, among the North’s impoverished population. But, Perlez has gone on to note in discussions with the North Koreans shortly before the death of Kim Jong-il in December, Washington had offered 240,000 tons of food, including fortified milk and high-energy bars. However, the North Koreans demanded 300,000 tons and wanted a large portion of grains in the shipment. Due to the North Koreans obstructing efforts to monitor the assistance, American officials have said they are opposed to sending grain on the grounds that it can easily be transferred to the North Korean Army, which is the largest in the world on a per capita basis. And so at this time the what direction relations with North Korea will take remains uncertain and tensions persist along the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea with American and South Korean troops ready for anything.
