{"id":59723,"date":"2018-02-27T06:01:59","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T06:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=59723"},"modified":"2018-02-27T06:01:59","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T06:01:59","slug":"state-department-point-man-on-north-korea-joe-yun-to-retire-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/state-department-point-man-on-north-korea-joe-yun-to-retire-friday.html","title":{"rendered":"State Department point man on North Korea, Joe Yun, to retire Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

State Department point man on North Korea, Joe Yun, to retire Friday<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

The State Department\u2019s point-man on North Korea, Joseph Yun, will leave his post on Friday, even as there are glimmers of hope that Pyongyang might finally be willing to sit down for talks with Washington.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yun, 63, is retiring as special representative for North Korea policy and deputy assistant secretary for Korea and Japan after more than three decades of service.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

His departure reflects the widespread frustration within the State Department at diplomats\u2019 relative lack of power in the Trump administration, according to someone familiar with Yun\u2019s thinking.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It will leave another gaping hole in the United States\u2019 staffing on Korean issues. Washington has still not nominated an ambassador to South Korea, 13 months into the Trump administration. Victor Cha had been in the running for the job, but the administration abruptly scrapped his candidacy last month.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yun confirmed that he would be retiring and that Friday would be his last day.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my own personal decision,\u201d Yun told The Washington Post. \u201cSecretary Tillerson has told me he appreciates my service and did not want me to go, but he accepts it reluctantly.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert confirmed that Rex Tillerson had \u201creluctantly accepted\u201d Yun\u2019s decision and wished him well.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe 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 toward a denuclearized Korean peninsula,\u201d Nauert said, using the abbreviation for North Korea\u2019s official name.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yun was the main person in the State Department dealing with the North Korea problem, and he traveled to Seoul and Tokyo frequently to coordinate with the U.S. allies.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He also traveled to Pyongyang last June to collect Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who had been detained in North Korea for 17 months, almost all of them in a coma.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yun brought Warmbier back to the United States on a medical evacuation flight. The 22-year-old died six days later.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

During that trip to Pyongyang, Yun was able to see the three other Americans being detained in North Korea. That was the last time the three men have been seen or heard from.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yun, a strong advocate of engagement with North Korea, has been arguing in favor of dialogue with Pyongyang during the last year of increased tensions.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He has been the U.S. government\u2019s main interlocutor with North Korea\u2019s diplomats assigned to the United Nations, the working-level hotline called \u201cthe New York channel.\u201d Yun has been meeting regularly with his counterpart there, Pak Song Il.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Last May, he met in Oslo with the head of the Americas division in North Korea\u2019s Foreign Ministry, Choe Son Hui, to arrange for Warmbier\u2019s release. Choe is thought to have a direct line to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Still, his efforts to promote dialogue with North Korea have been stymied by a president who has threatened to rain \u201cfire and fury\u201d down on the North Korean leader, whom Trump has derided as \u201clittle rocket man.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

At the Olympic Games in South Korea, which closed Sunday, South Korean president Moon Jae-in has been trying to promote dialogue, eliciting a sign from North Korea\u2019s representatives that they are willing to talk to the Trump administration.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But the signals have been mixed, to say the least. The White House reported that Vice President Pence was prepared to meet with North Korean officials during the Olympics opening ceremony but that they backed down at the last moment. The administration has kept up its drumbeat of \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d on Pyongyang.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

North Korea\u2019s chief delegate to the closing ceremony, Kim Yong Chol, had indicated a renewed willingness for talks, Moon said, although it remains unclear whether denuclearization would be on the agenda.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Yun\u2019s departure comes as many Foreign Service officers have expressed frustration with the Trump administration\u2019s unwillingness to listen to the State Department.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The top career diplomat in the State Department, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Tom Shannon, announced this month he would be retiring after 35 years in the Foreign Service.<\/span><\/span>
\nYun, who was born in South Korea but is a naturalized American citizen, joined the State Department in 1985.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He served as head of the political division in the U.S. Embassy in Seoul in the early 2000s, including when Roh Moo-hyun was president and his chief of staff was Moon , the current president. It was Yun who wrote the now-famous diplomatic cable describing Choi Tae-min, the spiritual adviser to disgraced former South Korean president Park Geun-hye, as a \u201cKorean Rasputin.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/state-department-point-man-on-north-korea-joe-yun-to-retire-friday\/2018\/02\/26\/9a201136-1b62-11e8-8a2c-1a6665f59e95_story.html?utm_term=.89b421d368f4<\/span><\/p>\n

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