The United States is quietly reaching out through diplomatic channels to North Korea despite President Trump’s admonition to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that such talks are a waste of time, according to a report.
Joseph Yun, a State Department official leading the negotiations, is using the so-called “New York channel” to make contact with the rogue regime’s diplomats at its United Nations mission, Reuters reported late Tuesday.
The revelation that Yun has been conducting behind-the-scenes diplomacy with Pyongyang comes as North Korea continues to develop its weapons system and as some South Korean and US officials have said his efforts have been reined in.
“It has not been limited at all, both (in) frequency and substance,” a senior State Department official told Reuters.
Initially, he was instructed to seek the release of US citizens held by North Korea.
“It is (now) a broader mandate than that,” the official said, declining to elaborate whether Yun was given authority to discuss North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons programs.
Tillerson last month said he would continue working on a diplomatic solution with President Kim Jong Un’s regime until the “first bomb drops,” but Trump in tweets took a different tack.
“I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” the president wrote on Twitter last month, deploying the nickname he’s been using to mock the North Korean despot. “Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!”
Trump, who has pledged to “totally destroy” North Korea if it attacks the US or its allies, will embark at the end of the week on a 12-day trip to Asia — including China, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and South Korea.
But administration officials said he won’t travel to the border with North Korea, known as the demilitarized zone.
“The president is not going to visit the DMZ,” an administration official told reporters Tuesday.
“We just had Secretary Mattis there last week,” the official said. “We had Vice President Pence there earlier this year. Secretary Tillerson was there. It’s becoming a little bit of a cliché, frankly.”