In early December, as President Obama’s special envoy was in Pyongyang trying to revive negotiations to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, six US scientists were in town on a different mission: establishing contacts with their North Korean counterparts. In an effort in the mold of US-Soviet cold war science diplomacy, the US delegation, led by Nobel laureate biochemist Peter Agre, broke new ground as the first attempt at scientific outreach to the politically isolated nation.
The five-day visit by scientists to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was the culmination of a four-year-old cooperative effort by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the US Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF), the Korea Society, and Syracuse University, which is engaged with Pyongyang’s Kim Chaek University of Technology in the sole ongoing academic science collaboration between the two nations. Members of the delegation say there was...
