Would Bolton shut down the New York North Korea channel, asks a reader:

What are you hearing on the Bolton vote? I'm getting contradictory reports that Frist will move to it later this week, or let it rest in the hopes that a compromise can be worked out between Dodd and the Administration.

One piece of analysis: Recent days have seen the "New York channel" used to great success to provide some hopes of reviving the Six Party Talks and bring North Korea back to the table. The New York channel involves two State Department officials, Joe Detrani and Joe Foster, both level-headed moderates, occasionally engaging in dialogue (but not negotiations) on current issues with the North Korean mission to the United Nations. It has provided a discreet, low-temperature mechanism for the U.S. and North Korea to send messages to each other without anyone being accused of engaging in bilateral negotiations. Predictably, Administration hardliners have wanted to shut this down, afraid that our State Department negotiators are implicitly promising concessions to the DPRK during their talks there.

So what happens when John Bolton gets confirmed and heads up the U.S. Mission to the United Nations? He may well seek to assert his authority as head of mission to outright block those meetings from occuring in the first place. Alternatively, if Rice puts her foot down and insists that they still take place, Bolton could well torpedo them anyway simply by insisting that he be present (and it would be hard to prevent the U.S. Ambassador to the UN from sitting in on a meeting occuring at his mission.)

Another issue Members of the Senate should consider in deciding whether Bolton is worthy of confirmation: do they want to see the New York Channel shut down?

Rice contradicted Rumsfeld's recent remarks on North Korea, the Post reported Monday, in a sign the first Bush term's tensions between the State Department and the Pentagon haven't diminished with new leadership at State.

Posted by Laura at June 7, 2005 11:08 AM