by Xinhua Writer Jiang Guopeng

    WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- Seeking a complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, the Obama administration could negotiate with Pyongyang simultaneously on three fronts: permanent peace, normalization of ties and denuclearization, said Alan Romberg, a U.S. expert on East Asian affairs.

    "The objective of the Obama administration, like the Bush administration, remains the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization of North Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or the DPRK)," Romberg, director of East Asia Program at the Washington-based global security thinktank Henry L. Stimson Center, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

    Romberg believed that, in the course of moving to that goal, the Obama administration is willing to develop other relationships with the DPRK, such as normalization of relations and replacement of the 1953 Armistice with permanent peace arrangements.

    "Those latter two developments can only come, however, in the context of a meaningful and successful denuclearization agreement," he stressed.

    "If North Korea (DPRK) is serious about only seeking security and it is willing to give up its nuclear weapons program if other arrangements can be reached to assure that security, then this simultaneous approach on all three fronts should be acceptable to it," said Romberg.

    "If, on the other hand, it really seeks to hold on to its nuclear weapons capabilities while it tries to transform the political situation through peace arrangements and normalization with the United States, this effort will not be acceptable to the Obama administration or any other government involved in the six-party process," he said.

    Stephen Bosworth, Obama's special representative for the DPRK, will visit Pyongyang on Tuesday, in an effort to make the country return to the denuclearization process guided by the six-party mechanism, which involves also China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Russia.

    The DPRK, which has boycotted the six-party talks since April to protest UN condemnation on its test-firing of an alleged satellite, has invited Bosworth to visit Pyongyang in a bid to improve its relations with Washington by direct talks.

    Washington's concern on DPRK's nuclear ambition and Pyongyang'sdesire to normalize relations with the United States have characterized the U.S.-DPRK relations in recent years as "subtle."

    As to Bosworth's visit, Romberg said the direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang won't continue with an extensive conversation unless the DPRK returns to six-party talks, and progress is being made toward concrete agreements leading to DPRK's total denuclearization.

    "The Obama administration will insist that bilateral conversations must lead to resumption of six-party talks and be conducted within the context of six-party talks. The United Statesis not interested in reaching bilateral agreements that do not receive the full agreement and blessing of the other participants in those talks."