Obama administration to engage North Korea directly

The Korea Herald reports that the Obama administration will engage North Korea directly without preconditions to persuade the communist state to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

According to the report, Obama will send a prominent figure as his special envoy to Pyongyang soon after his inauguration on January 20 to prepare for a possible visit there himself to make a breakthrough in the on-and-off multilateral nuclear talks that began in 2003.