US envoy exits as window for talks may be opening
Secretary of State reluctantly accepts his resignation
WASHINGTON >> Joseph Yun, a 30-year veteran of the U.S. foreign service who retained quiet contacts with North Korea amid the Trump administration’s turbulent first year, is retiring as Washington and Pyongyang step up considerations for formal diplomatic talks.
Yun told The Associated Press he will stand down as special representative for North Korean policy on Friday. He said his decision to retire is entirely his own but it comes at a surprising juncture, just after American ally South Korea relayed that the North is open to direct discussions with the United States. His departure will leave the Trump administration without an envoy for engaging North Korea or an ambassador in South Korea.
Yun, a former U.S. ambassador to Malaysia, has been the State Department’s point man for its limited
contact with the North Korean government through a back channel at the U.S. diplomatic mission to the United Nations in New York. The adversaries from the Korean War don’t have formal relations, and the so-called “New York channel” is the primary means for conveying messages between the two governments.
“One of my accomplishments has been to open the New York channel soon after the Trump administration got in,” Yun said. “That allowed for direct talks and direct communication. Really,
there is no problem with communicating. It’s problems of engagement that have been difficult.”
Yun visited Pyongyang in June to secure the release of U.S. college student Otto Warmbier, who had been imprisoned for 17 months for stealing a propaganda poster. Warmbier died days after his repatriation. Yun has been frustrated by North Korea’s reluctance to release the remaining Americans held in North Korea and discuss its nuclear weapons program, which President Donald Trump has threatened to dismantle by force, if necessary.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Yun retired for personal reasons, which the diplomat confirmed. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “has reluctantly accepted his decision and wished him well,” Nauert said.
“We are sorry to see him retire, but our diplomatic efforts regarding North Korea will continue based on our maximum pressure campaign to isolate the DPRK until it agrees to begin credible talks toward a denuclearized Korean peninsula,” Nauert said, using the initials of the North’s official name.
After first suggesting he might not be replaced, Nauert sent a statement to reporters saying someone would fill Yun’s position.
Yun’s immediate departure will add to a shortage of top diplomats handling Korean policy. The ambassador post in South Korea has been vacant for the past year, adding to questions about the direction of U.S. policy as Trump has vacillated between talk of war and willingness to speak directly with leader Kim Jong Un.