US And North Korea Have Secret Talks
The lack of diplomatic prowess demonstrated by North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and American President Donald J Trump in recent public exchanges has made many people fear that there may be a military confrontation between the two nations in the near future. The existence of lesser known diplomatic channels between the two nations may be critical in helping to avoid a conflict.
In Midtown Manhattan, in a building that also hosts a dermatologist, a sports medicine doctor and a package tour operator, two North Korean diplomats run a backchannel line of communication to U.S. officials in Washington.
The office, known as the “New York channel,” is technically part of the North Korean mission to the United Nations; in the 1990s, during the height of its use, it functioned almost as a de facto embassy. Today, as President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un trade personal insults and threats of war, it’s more like a mailbox that each side occasionally uses to pass along messages.
But as the bluster between Trump and Kim escalates, there are signs that officials in both countries see a need to talk to avert a nuclear standoff. And although the New York channel is relatively quiet for now, it could become central to avoiding a military confrontation between the U.S. and North Korea — as soon as both sides are ready to use it effectively.
These days, the two North Koreans charged with operating the New York channel are Pak Song Il, the ambassador for American affairs at the North Korean mission to the U.N., and his deputy, Kwon Jong Gun.
They usually work in tandem, in part to prevent defection. They meet regularly with so-called “Track II” diplomats — private individuals from the U.S. side who engage in unofficial talks with North Korean government officials — and occasionally with U.S. government officials. They sometimes help arrange limited media tours to North Korea, although they did not respond to multiple interview requests from HuffPost.
There’s a Hallmark store on the ground floor of the building, which also hosts diplomats and officials from Barbados, Bangladesh, Nepal, Croatia, Angola, Peru, Madagascar, Syria and Spain’s Basque region.
“Everybody knows they’re here,” said KJ Singh, the manager of the Hallmark, said of the North Korean U.N. mission. Whenever Kim says something controversial, reporters from Korean or Japanese news outlets gather outside, Singh said.
