U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak reaffirmed in Seoul on Thursday that they will seek a "definite and comprehensive resolution" to the North Korean nuclear issue. Mr. Obama urged the North to return to the six-party nuclear talks, adding that he will send special representative for North Korea policy Stephen Bosworth to the country on Dec. 8.
In early October, North Korean leader Kim Jong Ill, meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Pyongyang, expressed his country's "readiness" for multilateral talks, including the six-party talks, "depending on the outcome" of bilateral talks with the United States. North Korea withdrew from the six-party talks last April to protest a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning its long-range rocket launch the same month. North Korea then detonated a nuclear device in May.
Mr. Bosworth's visit to the North will mark Washington's first bilateral talks with Pyongyang under the Obama administration. It is hoped that his meeting with North Korean officials will help to resuscitate the six-party talks. Utmost care should be taken so that North Korea does not use the meeting as a means of causing divisions among the five other parties — the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea and Russia — and of getting benefits through improved ties with the U.S., and possibly with South Korea, without making clear concessions on the nuclear issue.