But the administration's own first appointee as envoy to North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, and former Clinton administration negotiator, Robert Gallucci, said the U.S. government has not had direct contact with a senior North Korean official for more than a year and that the current diplomatic impasse only buys time for Pyongyang to develop its nuclear program further.
The former envoys said that in informal talks last month, North Korean officials told them they were willing to negotiate about their nuclear weapons program.
“Whatever risks might be associated with new talks, they are less than those that come with doing nothing,” Bosworth and Gallucci wrote Monday in the International New York Times.
Coming from Bosworth in particular, that's pointed criticism. On his watch, the administration's engagement with Pyongyang was very cautious—a policy dubbed “strategic patience”—and actually drew criticism from then Sen. John Kerry who favored more active efforts to talk with the reclusive regime.