North Korean press briefing in New York? Forget about it

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - It's not easy getting North Korean diplomats to talk about missile launches or nuclear tests these days.

A few years ago the mission's top diplomats would speak to the press, occasionally inviting large groups of selected reporters to their mission on Second Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. Often they repeated whatever the country's official KCNA news agency had run, but there was an exchange.

Now all you are likely to get is a terse brush-off on the phone.

Several diplomats said the North Korean mission changed its modus operandi when it became clear several years ago that North Korea's late leader Kim Jong-il was preparing to pass the baton to his son, the current leader Kim Jong-un.

"The DPRK (North Korea) mission became very cautious during the transition period and remains so," a U.N. Security Council diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "They like to let Pyongyang do the talking on the big issues."

"These diplomats are afraid," another diplomat said. "One wrong word and who knows what could happen to you."

In June 2010, Pyongyang's U.N. Ambassador Sin Son-ho packed the U.N. briefing room, where empty seats are commonplace, when he convened a press conference to defend his nation against Seoul's allegations that the North Korean military torpedoed a South Korean naval ship on March 26, killing 46 sailors.

Speaking in English, Sin showed a jovial side at least twice during his hour-long briefing, in which he fielded numerous questions from reporters, many of them Japanese and South Korean. He laughed heartily when asked how North Korea's soccer team would perform in the World Cup in South Africa.

"This is not a place to be concerned about a soccer team," Sin said with a big smile. "I am not in a position to give you any answer to your question, because your question is not directly related to the sinking of the South Korean warship."

Sin's former deputy, Pak Tok Hun, also used to give interviews to Reuters and other media. But in recent years the mission appears to have become more media-shy, a perception that other members of the U.N. press said they shared.

A telephone call to the North Korean mission on Friday highlighted how things seem to have changed.

An official who answered was asked by Reuters if the ambassador or someone else at the mission was available to talk about North Korea's threatened missile launch, expected over the next few days, or any other issue.

"I'm sorry but we don't have any comment on that," he said.

Next question. Why has the North Korean mission stopped organizing news conferences for U.N. reporters?

"This mission has a name, the permanent mission of the DPRK (North Korea) to the United Nations," he said. "So we are deal only with issues related to the United Nations."

"It's very clear we don't have any mind to have an interview or the press conference," he added.

When I asked him his name, he said it was Kim, which narrowed it down to four of the 10 North Koreans listed in the official U.N. roster of accredited national diplomats.

DISCREET DIPLOMACY

But it is not as if North Korean diplomats have gone silent. Recently they were very vocal during negotiations on a U.N. arms trade treaty, joining forces with Iran and Syria to prevent a drafting conference from reaching consensus on the first ever treaty to regular global international arms trade.

The North Korean delegation spoke openly and repeatedly against the treaty, which the U.N. General Assembly ultimately approved after the drafting conference collapsed due to North Korean, Iranian and Syrian opposition.

The mission is also involved in more discreet diplomacy.

Last month North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador Han Song-ryol met with a senior U.S. official - the so-called "New York channel" for U.S.-North Korean dialogue - to discuss Pyongyang's February nuclear test, diplomatic sources have said. This was first reported by Josh Rogin on his Foreign Policy magazine blog but U.N. diplomats later confirmed it for Reuters.

Other national diplomats and senior U.N. officials confirmed that the North Korean U.N. mission has adopted a lower public profile in recent years, opting instead for discreet diplomacy.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, has said repeatedly that he has not had any direct communications with Pyongyang in recent months.

That contrasts sharply with U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano, who told an audience at the Japan Society on Wednesday that even though North Korea withdrew from the Vienna-based agency, there are open avenues of contact the IAEA can use to communicate with Pyongyang.

"We have a channel of dialogue and when we need to talk to them we can," Amano said, without giving details.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/north-korean-press-briefing-york-forget-173948782.html

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