Yesterday, 25 November, a Reuters report indicated that the U.S. State Department had deployed a diplomat to North Korea ahead of establishing formal ties:

The United States has stationed a State Department employee in Pyongyang to lay the groundwork for opening a permanent liaison office in North Korea. . . “A U.S. State Department diplomat who handles administrative affairs has checked into a room in Koryo Hotel and has been using it as an office and accommodation,” the Chosun Ilbo newspaper quoted an unnamed source in Washington as saying.

Today a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Seoul denied the earlier report:

The State Department has an employee in Pyongyang but only to manage equipment for a team that is overseeing the disablement of North Korea’s nuclear facilities. The employee will be in the North through the disablement process. “This is not for normalisation,” spokesman Max Kwak said.

Given State’s closed-room dealings with North Korea (i.e., the Banco Delta ~$25 million), and the administration’s apparent willingness to overlook North Korea provocations and lack of progress (here and here), their credibility is unfortunately not the best.

Also see OneFreeKorea on the same topic.