Kurt Campbell

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the point man in nuclear talks with North Korea, may not accompany U.S. President Barack Obama to South Korea on Dec. 18 and 19. An official at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on Tuesday said Campbell, who is currently in China, may not come to Korea, although the final decision has not been made.

Campbell is the senior official in the State Department responsible for Korean affairs, and his visit to South Korea had been regarded as a foregone conclusion.

There is suspicion that there still remain tensions over President Lee Myung-bak's proposal of a "grand bargain" for North Korea. When Lee proposed the plan in September, Campbell said, "To be perfectly honest, I was not aware of that." When the press smelled a lack of coordination between Washington and Seoul, Lee said, "Who cares if a Mr. so-and-so denies knowledge" of a proposal that had been agreed between the leaders.  

In early October, when Campbell was touring East Asia, he also skipped South Korea and went only to China and Japan. But a diplomat denied there is a rift. "Both South Korea and the U.S. have their own diplomatic schedule, and officials move accordingly. There is no such tension between the two countries," he said. "The misunderstanding arises just because Campbell's predecessor, Christopher Hill, was especially close to South Korea and came here many times."