US president Barack Obama's first envoy to North Korea arrived in Pyongyang today to try to coax the prickly state back to the nuclear talks it quit a year ago, but without offering any new incentives.
Stephen Bosworth is due to stay for three days and meet top North Korean officials, but not leader Kim Jong-il, for talks analysts say may lead to a pledge from Pyongyang to end its boycott of the nuclear discussions but no big breakthroughs.
US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Bosworth and his team had arrived in Pyongyang but were not expected to communicate with Washington until their return to Seoul as early as Thursday.
"This particular meeting is to see if North Korea is prepared to return to six-party talks and to reaffirm their commitments under the 2005 Joint Communique," he said, referring to the four-year-old pledge to give up building an atomic arsenal in return for aid and security guarantees.
Bosworth and his team flew from an airbase near Seoul and landed at an airport on the outskirts of Pyongyang, a one-line dispatch by the North's official KCNA news agency said.
Kim signalled in October during a visit to Pyongyang by Chinese premier Wen Jiabao that his state could return to the nuclear talks if the United States dispatched an envoy.
Hosted by China, the negotiations include North and South Korea, Japan, Russia and the United States.
Analysts say the North's broken economy may be forcing it back to the bargaining table, where it hopes to win aid.
The North was hit with fresh UN sanctions after its nuclear test in May that cut into its sale of arms. Weapons, its main export item, are worth perhaps more than $1 billion to a state with an estimated $17 billion economy.
The Bosworth visit is likely to be trumpeted by the North's propaganda machine as a victory for Kim, whose military-first rule and nuclear weapons program have forced Washington to come to Pyongyang with concessions.
A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said yesterday in Washington that Bosworth would not be offering any new inducements.
But he said any return to the talks would enable Pyongyang to once again seek economic aid offered under the 2005 framework -- a strong incentive for a government facing both UN sanctions and US Treasury efforts to target its finances.
Reuters