According to the Foreign Policy blog quiet progress is supposedly being made with negotiations with the North Koreans:

Despite initial reports that next to nothing was accomplished during last week’s discussions between U.S. and North Korean officials in New York and San Diego, an administration official told The Cable that substantial progress was made in behind-the-scenes talks between Sung Kim, the State Department’s special envoy to the six party talks, and Ri Gun, North Korea’s lead negotiator.

According to an account from an official with access to information on the negotiations, which a second source has confirmed, the U.S. side put forth a proposal with three main conditions. The first was that the North Koreans agree to have exactly two formal bilateral meetings with the United States before returning to a multilateral forum. The North Koreans agreed. They had previously said they would return to the multilateral talks only if the bilateral meetings went well.

The second condition put forth by the U.S. was that Ambassador Stephen Bosworth, who has been invited repeatedly to Pyongyang, would be able to meet with Kong Sok Ju, North Korea’s first vice foreign minister. According to the official, the North Koreans also had no problem with that.

Bosworth’s visit would be seen as a failure unless some demonstrable progress was made and it is widely believed that only the top officials in Kim Jong Il’s regime have real negotiating authority. By meeting with Kong, Bosworth could leapfrog Ri and his boss ,Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Kye Gwan.

The third condition put forth by the U.S. side is the main sticking point. The United States wanted North Korea to abide by its previous commitments, namely the Sept. 19, 2005 declaration in which the North Koreans committed “to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to IAEA safeguards.

Here the North Koreans demurred, according to the official, saying they wanted to resume talks based on the idea of “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” a nuanced but important distinction.  [The Cable]

This isn’t much of progress at all, which goes back to what I have been saying for years, the North Koreans have no intention of denuclearizing and are just trying to get as many concessions as possible for little or nothing in return and they keep finding new suckers to play this game with them.