The United States announced a full-time envoy will be in charge of persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions, as the two sides were getting ready to hold a new round of talks over the communist state’s nuclear programs.

On Wednesday, Washington time, the Obama administration said Stephen Bosworth, who had been on the job on a part-time basis for two and a half years, would be replaced by Glyn Davies, the U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Davies will work on a full-time basis.

Washington added, however, the replacement did not indicate a shift in its policy on Pyongyang.

“It’s important to stress this is a change in personnel, not a change in policy,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

“And our goal is to ensure a smooth transition and to reinforce the continuity in U.S. policy toward North Korea.”

Both Davies and Bosworth will be meeting next week with the North Korean delegation led by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, he added. 

“We’re looking for more progress,” Toner said. “We’re not seeking to reward North Korea in any way by holding these talks, and we certainly don’t want to have talks just for the sake of talking.”

In a press briefing Thursday, Seoul’s Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan said he understood the “replacement of envoy as a personal reason-related issue.”

“(Bosworth) served as a dean as he was working as the envoy and I believe he wished to return to school,” Kim said. “We are grateful about his past efforts and look forward working together with the incoming envoy who has vast knowledge and experience on North Korea.”

Bosworth serves as dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Boston.

The announcement comes as Washington and Pyongyang are scheduled to hold talks on Monday and Tuesday in Geneva on ways to resume the stalled multinational talks aimed at denuclearizing North Korea.

The talks, involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, have been suspended since the last round held at the end of 2008 when Pyongyang left the negotiation table claiming other partners had failed to keep their part of the deal.

North Korea, apparently wanting to secure aid and escape deepening international isolation, has repeatedly expressed its willingness to rejoin the negotiations.

Observers say Pyongyang is in need of more outside financial assistance especially as the Kim Jong-il regime prepares for a leadership succession and the centennial next year of the birth of his father and the nation’s founder Kim Il-sung.

In an interview with Russia media, North Korean leader Kim again said he hoped for an immediate resumption of the dialogue “without preconditions.”

“Our principled position remains unchanged that the six-way talks should be quickly resumed without preconditions,” Kim said in a written interview with Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency.

The U.S. and South Korea maintain that Pyongyang must accept their demand for resumption of the talks. The two allies want Pyongyang to take concrete actions such as halting its uranium and plutonium programs and allowing outside inspectors back into the country to check its dismantling process under a 2005 agreement forged during the six-nation dialogue.

Bosworth had delivered such demands during his talk with Kim in New York in July, only to receive a lukewarm response from the North Korean official.

South Korean Foreign Minister Kim said he is “neither optimistic nor pessimistic” about the results of the upcoming Washington-Pyongyang talks.

“Based on Kim Jong-il’s interview, it does seem that North Korea has made little changes to its previous position.”

“I do hope North Korea will realize it will be more beneficial to take up to our request,” Kim said, adding his government “is and has always been” ready to talk to North Korea openly.

By Shin Hae-in and news reports 
(hayney@heraldcorp.com)