The North Koreans are out looking for their latest payday and have brought out the usual useful idiots to set conditions:

North Korea is a mysterious place for most Americans. Even senior U.S. diplomats rarely set foot there, let alone meet top North Korean officials face to face.

The country is no enigma for Selig Harrison, though. The outspoken scholar and former reporter has visited 11 times since 1972 and regularly interviews powerful North Koreans.

While the United States is perplexed about what it can do to stop North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, Harrison believes his contacts in the North have given him the answers.

Harrison sees North Korea as a struggling country that should be pitied, not feared. He says North Korea wants Washington to accept it as a nuclear power; eliminating the weapons would have to follow an improvement in relations.

His critics consider him an apologist for a government that brutalizes its citizens and a mouthpiece for North Korea’s anti-American views.

Many lawmakers and U.S. officials take him seriously, however, and supporters praise him as an invaluable link between two wary countries. Few Americans get as close as he to North Korea’s leadership. When he returns from the North, Harrison often is called on to brief Congress, scholars and reporters.  [Reuter]

I and others have said this over and over again that the North Koreans have no intention of disarming and the North Koreans have repeatedly said this as well to Harrison:

After returning from his most recent trip to the North, in January, Harrison offered a suggestion that was at odds with long-standing U.S. policy: with the North demanding recognition as a nuclear weapons state, Washington should refocus its strategy on trying to cap the number of weapons in North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

The Obama administration has made clear that it is not interested in a cap. Washington wants the North first to take irreversible steps toward abandoning its nuclear ambitions, with senior U.S. officials refusing to accept “halfway measures.”

Besides Selig Harrison, Kim Jong-Bill Richardson is also busy getting his picture taken with the North Koreans:

North Korea believes it’s owed bilateral talks with the United States after the communist government released two detained American journalists this month — a notion that senior Obama administration officials quickly rejected on Wednesday.

“They feel, the North Koreans, that by giving us the two American journalists, that they’ve made an important gesture,” New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told CNN Wednesday after meeting with two North Korean diplomats. “And now they’re saying the ball’s in our court.”

But senior Obama administration officials said six-party talks are still the proper venue for such a dialogue, and stressed that Richardson was not negotiating on the president’s behalf. Richardson himself said he would only relay the information to the White House.

“Our policy toward North Korea remains today as it has been — calling for the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” one of the administration officials said Wednesday. “We believe the six-party talks are the best forum for that. The bottom line is, the ball is in North Korea’s court.”  [CNN]

I think the deal that was worked out for the reporters release probably included some vague promises by the Obama administration that they would directly deal with the North Koreans at some point. The administration is saying that this will not happen, but I would not be surprised if down the road here the North Koreans agree to six party talks but attempt to hold side meetings with the US delegation while ignoring everyone else present.

I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens, but this is beginning to feel like deja vu all over again.