Asia-Pacific

Obama proposes US liaison in DPRK-Yonhap

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-12-19 03:38

SEOUL: U.S. President Barack Obama has proposed setting up a liaison office in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) next year in a step to ease tensions between the two rival states, Yonhap news agency said on Friday.

The offer was in a letter for leader Kim Jong-il that Obama's first envoy to the state delivered when he went to Pyongyang last week for discussions aimed at reviving dormant nuclear disarmament talks, Yonhap quoted diplomatic sources in Beijing as saying.

DPRK's official KCNA news agency confirmed later on Friday that the letter from Obama to Kim had been handed to First Vice Minister Kang Sok-ju, considered the mastermind of the DPRK's nuclear policy, by U.S. envoy Stephen Bosworth on December 9. It gave no other details.

The U.S. State Department said it would not comment on diplomatic correspondence.

Obama said the liaison office could be established if Pyongyang ended its year-long boycott of the talks and returned in the next few months to the discussions with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States, Yonhap said.

DPRK, which has seen its broken economy become weaker since it walked out of the disarmament-for-aid nuclear talks, hinted it was ready to resume discussions after its top nuclear policy maker met U.S. envoy Stephen Bosworth.

The sources quoted by Yonhap said the offer presents a face-saving opportunity for DPRK, which had declared the talks dead and said it would never go back unless Washington drops what Pyongyang sees as hostile plans to topple its leaders.

"DPRK is looking for a way to justify their return to the talks," an unidentified source said.

The two countries, technically still at war and with no diplomatic ties, usually conduct their rare communications through the DPRK U.N. mission in New York.