With policy toward North Korea in limbo while Washington conducts a monthslong policy review, experts and former officials are sparring over whether to shift the United States' position away from seeking the North's full denuclearization.
President Joe Biden's young administration says its review of North Korea policy will be finished in coming months and that it will announce its plans for handling the rolling crisis that has bedevilled generations of U.S. presidents.
In his first major speech outlining Biden's top foreign policy priorities, Secretary of State Antony Blinken focused Wednesday on China, only mentioning North Korea as one of several countries that present "serious challenges."