Joe DiTrani Stepping Down

The Chosun Ilbo reports:

The U.S. special envoy for North Korea Joseph DeTrani is quitting to take up a
job in the office of the director for national intelligence next week. As the
deputy head of Washington’s delegation at six-party talks on North Korea’s
nuclear program and Washington’s man in the near-defunct Korea Energy
Development Organization, DeTrani has been a point man in often informal
contacts between North Korea and the U.S. since he took over as special envoy at
the end of 2003. No successor has been named, but the State Department says the
department’s Korean Affairs James Foster will take over DeTrani’s KEDO duties.

Note that DiTrani has been a point man in “informal” contacts, ie. the gatekeeper of the New York channel and the Administration’s alternative to Jack Pritchard and Selig Harrison. Foster, a career State Department official who speaks Japanese and has no clear ideological history that I could find, may or may not fill DiTrani’s negotiating role. Foster has a history of shadowing DiTrani at quasi-social events where the North Koreans also appear (this is how the New York channel works). This could either mean that State wanted Foster to develop his own relationship with the North Koreans, or that Foster was placed there to keep an eye on DiTrani, a practice the State Department tends to employ to give itself some extra security that its senior officials are toeing the line.

A diplomatic source in Washington said the departure of DeTrani, who originally
worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), does not signify a policy
shift by the U.S. in the North Korean nuclear issue.

Well, maybe, depending on who takes DiTrani’s place at the negotiating table or in the Manhattan cocktail party circuit. But given the much sharper rhetoric from Washington recently, I’d hesitate to make a statement that definitive without knowing more facts than this story reports.

On the other hand, DiTrani’s departure can’t be good news for Pyongyang. DiTrani explained his views in great detail at this public but off-the-record event, where I actually sat next to him (mostly as a result of bumbling tardiness). I will honor the off-the-record policy that applied to the event by not revealing specifics of what Amb. Di Trani said, but I think he can fairly be characterized as more supportive of and credulous about negotiating with the North Koreans than other members of the negotiating team. DiTrani’s outlook was about what you’d expect in the way of conventional State Department thinking. His softer-than-average line did not extend to support for the accomodation of counterfeiting or drug smuggling. In plain English, I saw DiTrani as a “good cop,” and Hill as the “bad cop.” I’d add that in person, Amb. DiTrani is a genuinely nice person; I can’t shake the idea that his voice and mannerisms reminded me of Christopher Walken.

Another observation: DiTrani’s role in the New York channel means that he did relatively more talking to the North Koreans, but when I last saw Hill and DiTrani before Congress a couple of months ago, it was Hill who did all the talking, as tends to be the case before American audiences. What this means is that each audience tended to see a different face. It’s doubtful that the North Koreans could be much happier with anyone than they are with DiTrani now.

It may also be significant that DiTrani is going to an intel job, where he’ll be far from New York and much less likely to have a good reason to talk to the North Koreans. It would seem that his New York channel days are genuinely over.