The United States and North Korea: Observations of an Intermediary
November 2, 2006
Dr. C. Kenneth Quinones, former DPRK country director, Department of State, is a veteran of many meetings between U.S. officials and North Korean diplomats, Quinones discussed the observations - and frustrations - while serving as an intermediary between the North Korean Mission in the New York and the Department of State in 2004-2006.
Dr. Quinones is currently the Director of the Global Studies and Professor of Korean Studies at Akita International University in Japan. He has been involved with Northeast Asia since 1962 as a soldier, scholar and diplomat. He has lived and worked in South and North Korea, plus Japan and visits china often. As a U.S. diplomat, he witnessed South Korea's democratization during the 1980s and was directly involved in North Korea's opening to the outside world during the 1990s. Since 2000, he has published three books: The North Korea Nuclear Crisis--Off the Record Memories; Beyond Diplomacy: Implementation of the Agreed Frame Work; and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding North Korea.
Dr. Quinones holds a Ph.D. in History and East Asian Language from Harvard University.
Listen or download audio of the program.
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Inside North Korea (audio and transcripts available) Reports about the conditions inside North Korea and what it would take to create a peace regime on the Korean peninsula by the Venerable Pomnyun, Chairman of the Good Friends Center for Peace, Human Rights and Refugees, Dr. Seung Joo Baek, of the Peace Foundation and the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis.
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