Is anyone surprised by this development?:

As the North Korean delegation to the U.S. heads back home this weekend, there were no breakthroughs to report out of their final meeting in New York, although the Pyongyang representatives did take the opportunity to suggest that financial incentives might be helpful in bringing them back to the negotiating table.

A team of seven North Korea officials met all day with a group of American former officials and Asia experts Friday in New York under the banner of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and the Korea Society. No administration officials attended the meetings, despite that the State Department’s Sung Kim did meet with North Korea negotiator Rin Gun in San Diego Tuesday and in New York last weekend.

The sessions were led by a quartet of senior former U.S. diplomats: NCAFP’s Donald Zagoria and George Schwab, Korea Society president Evans Revere, and former Ambassador to China Winston Lord.

“There weren’t any major breakthroughs of where do we go from here,” reported Lord immediately following the meeting.

While there were frank discussions both in open session and in side meetings throughout the day, nobody on the U.S. side came away with the impression that the North Koreans were ready to make any concessions or adjustments to their policies that would precipitate a resumption of the Six Party Talks, which North Korea declared dead after unilaterally withdrawing in April.  [The Cable]

The sad thing is that it is likely someone is going to end up paying off the North Koreans to keep the myth of progress by negotiating with the North Koreans alive.