The first talks planned between Washington and Pyongyang in years have reportedly been canceled, as the US State Department denied entry to a high-level North Korean diplomat, with the North’s recent missile tests and Kim Jong Nam’s murder also possible factors.
The low-key talks between former US officials and Choe Son Hui, the director-general of the American affairs bureau in the North Korean Foreign Ministry, were set to take place between March 1 and 2 in New York, but Choe was denied a visa, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The rationale behind scuttling the meeting was not immediately clear, but the report said Pyongyang’s latest ballistic missile test and the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, may have played a role.
State Department officials have refused to comment on the reason Choe’s visa was denied, saying it does not comment on “the details of individual visa cases.” Earlier, the Washington Post wrote that issuing a visa to the North Korean diplomat would signal the administration’s approval of the talks, which were arranged independently of the State Department due to their unofficial nature.
Nonetheless, the US-North Korea meeting in New York would have been the first in the US since 2011 and involved some top-tier officials from both sides. As a career diplomat, Choe served as an aide and interpreter during the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and other high-level meetings, including former US President Bill Clinton trip to Pyongyang in 2009.
