The announcement of a U.S.-North Korea bilateral meeting to be held next week surprised many analysts, coming as it does so soon after the death of Kim Jong Il and the ascension to power of his son, Kim Jong Un. No substantive discussion of nuclear proliferation is expected at this meeting, so it is unclear what might be motivating both sides to meet. In this analysis, LIGNET probes the motivations of both the United States and North Korea and looks at what the talks might accomplish.

For the past three years, diplomatic contacts between the United States and North Korea have been virtually nonexistent. There were two brief rounds of meetings last year held in Geneva and New York and there were plans to schedule a new meeting in Beijing, but that was put on hold when Kim Jong Il died in late December. Last year’s meetings were preliminary in nature and designed only to gauge whether or not to begin formal diplomatic engagement.