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By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington was prepared to speak directly with Pyongyang to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula, US news outlets reported on Apr. 14.

Kerry’s approach is drawing attention as a break from the Barack Obama administration’s previous approach of avoiding any dialogue with North Korea at all since the latter backed out of a Feb. 29, 2012, agreement after less than one month.

During a meeting with reporters accompanying him on his tour of South Korea, China, and Japan, Kerry said the US was “prepared to reach out” to North Korea.

“But we need the appropriate moment, appropriate circumstance,” he went on to say.

The Washington Post also reported him as hinting at the more traditional approach of sending a special envoy in the near future. When asked why retired basketball star Dennis Rodman was the most famous person from the US to have met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, he said, “It may be that somebody will be asked to sit down.”

Kerry also suggested that the US might use China to negotiate with North Korea, saying he was “open personally to exploring other avenues.”

“I’m interested, particularly, in hearing what China wants to say,” he added.

In particular, he said that Beijing might have a “back channel” with Pyongyang.

Kerry indicated a strong desire to achieve some kind of breakthrough, saying he was “not going to be so stuck in the mud that an opportunity to actually get something done is flagrantly wasted because of a kind of predetermined stubbornness.”

But he also stressed the need for denuclearization measures from Pyongyang before any dialogue. In particular, he said “some actions” in good faith were needed “so we’re not going around and around in the same-old, same-old.”

Kerry went on to say that he would talk to colleagues and discuss specific measures from North Korea upon his return to Washington. Although he articulated the administration’s basic position that Pyongyang must show a sincere intent to denuclearize before any dialogue, he also indicated that there was some room for adjusting the strength of the demand.

Kerry also mentioned Washington’s readiness to negotiate denuclearization of the peninsula at an Apr. 15 speech at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Saying the possibility of dialogue “entirely depends on [North Korea’s] attitude,” Kerry stressed that Pyongyang needed to take meaningful action to show it was prepared to honor its past agreements.

Meanwhile, he also hurried to caution against reading too much into his previous statement that the US had proposed withdrawing its missile defense network in Asia if North Korea ends its nuclear program.

Speaking at an Apr. 14 press conference after meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, Kerry said Obama had “deployed some additional missile defense capacity precisely because of the threat of North Korea.”

“It is logical that if the threat of the North Korea disappears because the peninsula denuclearizes, then obviously, that threat no longer mandates that kind of posture,” he continued.

At the same time, he added that there had been “no agreements, no discussions . . . nothing actually on the table with respect to that.”

“I was simply making an observation about the rationale for that particular deployment,” he explained.

Kerry’s initial remarks came at a press conference on Apr. 13 after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other leaders in Beijing.

“Obviously if the threat disappears, i.e. North Korea denuclearizes, the same imperative does not exist at that point of time for us to have that kind of robust forward leaning posture of defense,” he said at the time.

Kerry’s explanation showed he was anxious to quiet concerns that his reference to the possibility of reducing the missile defense network might draw objections from conservatives.

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