Stephen Bosworth, Washington’s
special envoy to North Korea |
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named Stephen Bosworth, a former ambassador to South Korea, as Washington's special envoy to North Korea Friday.
Bosworth, who has served as the dean of Massachusetts-based Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy since 2001, will concurrently serve as the U.S. representative at six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, Clinton said during a joint news conference following talks with South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan in Seoul.
The six-party talks, involving the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia, are at a stalemate over ways to verify the North's nuclear materials and activities.
``North Korean behavior presents a number of foreign policy changes for the United States, the region and the world,'' she said. ``So we need a capable and experienced diplomat to lead our efforts to stop the risks of North Korea's nuclear ambitions and proliferation of sensitive weapons technology and its human rights and humanitarian challenges.''
Bosworth is a former senior State Department official who knows Korean affairs well from his days as ambassador to Seoul from 1997 to 2000.
Earlier this month, he visited Pyongyang as a member of a U.S. civilian group. After returning from the trip, he told reporters that North Korean officials expressed a willingness to re-engage in the stalled denuclearization talks.
He added the officials he saw were upbeat about future discussions and showed a willingness to work with the new U.S. administration.
Bosworth served as executive director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization between 1995 and 1997 when the consortium began building two light-water nuclear energy reactors in North Korea under an earlier nuclear deal with Pyongyang that collapsed in 2002.
He also served as the State Department's director of policy planning and was ambassador to the Philippines from 1984 to1987, the period when former President Ferdinand Marcos' government collapsed and the long-time strongman fled to exile in the United States.
He won the American Academy of Diplomacy's Diplomat of the Year Award in 1987.
gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr
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