Stephen Bosworth in North Korea

Without offering any new incentives and keeping hopes by convincing the nuclear-armed nation to return to arms reduction talks, Stephen Bosworth a senior US envoy has arrived in North Korea. To have the direct talks with North Korea, Bosworth will be the first official from the Obama administration. To determine whether North Korea Plans on returning to negotiations, is the main objective of Bosworth’s visit, said by US officials.

Four years ago North Korea agreed and prepared to recommit to a six-party plan in which they would give up their weapons in return of aid and security guarantees.

During his visit, Bosworth is expected to have talks with senior North Korean officials, but he is not expected to meet the reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

“We have received assurances from the North Koreans that there will be appropriate high level meetings. I don’t want to speculate on precisely who they will be,” narrated by an administration official in Washington. North Korea wants to pursue direct bilateral talks with the US and had previously said that it views the six-party talks as a dead process. Without the agreement of other parties Washington will not agree to any major steps and will only hold direct talks as a precursor to a revival six-party process. The Chinese-hosted six-party talks involve negotiators from the two Koreas, China, Japan, and the US.

Bosworth would not be offering any new inducements to North Korea, but the visit could be extended beyond the planned three days if progress was being made, said a US Official in Washington.

Any return to negotiations would enable North Korea to once again look for the economic assistance offered under the 2005 arms reduction deal, the official speaking on the condition of anonymity. Referring to the stalled six-party talks, the official said, “If they are ready to go, we are confident that the chair of the talks would be ready to reconvene those talks. If there are specific issues that the North wants to raise in terms of how to get them restarted, obviously we would listen to that.”

To return to negotiations Bosworth would not be taking any “incentives or inducements” to the north, said the official.

“We don’t intend to reward North Korea simply for going back to something that it previously committed to do. That’s something we’ve seen in the past, but has proved to be counterproductive in terms of our overall goals,” he said.