US envoy on NKorea exits as window for talks widens
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 socalled “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 told the AP. “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