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Bloomberg
Joseph Yun, the US special representative for North Korea, is set to step down, the State Department said, in a move that comes as Kim Jong Un’s regime says it’s willing to hold talks with Washington.
A North Korean official told South Korea this week that the door was open for dialogue, and Washington said it was willing to talk while maintaining its stance of maximum pressure on Pyongyang.
The State Department also does not have a confirmed assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Yun, who took up his post in 2016, advocated engagement with North Korea, even when the isolated regime launched sophisticated missiles and conducted underground nuclear tests. During his tenure, he helped to secure the release of Otto Warmbier, an American student detained by the North.
“We are sorry to see him retire, but our diplomatic efforts regarding North Korea will continue based on our maximum pressure campaign to isolate the DPRK until it agrees to begin credible talks towards a denuclearized Korean peninsula,†State
Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.