As you head off for your Presidents' Day weekend, The Cable would just like to note that it's now been over 72 hours since Secretary of State John Kerry reached out to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov -- without getting a call back.

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As The Cable reported earlier this week, Kerry reached out to Lavrov after North Korea detonated a nuclear bomb on Feb. 11, as well as the foreign ministers of Japan, China, and South Korea. Lavrov, who has been traveling in Africa, is the only foreign minister who didn't answer or return Kerry's call. The State Department is trying very hard not to seem upset about the perceived snub.

"Well, first of all, let me say that we are relaxed. The secretary is relaxed about this," outgoing State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday. "From our perspective, the secretary would like to talk to him. It's up to him whether he wants to take that opportunity."

Today, reporters at the State Department briefing were flabbergasted that it is taking this long for the Russian leader to respond.

"Our daily question about Mr. Lavrov:  Has he returned the phone call? Have you found him? Is he missing in action?" one reporter asked.

"They have not yet connected by phone," Nuland said.

"I mean, this is getting kind of ridiculous, isn't it?" another reporter asked her.

"Look, as we said at that time, as I've been saying all week, we're making it clear that we would like to talk if they want to. If they are too busy or otherwise engaged, the offer stands, and we'll continue to do other diplomacy," she responded.

Kerry and Lavrov have spoken on the phone just once since the former senator became secretary, and the conversation was all about communicating, Nuland said at the time

"In the phone call with Foreign Minister Lavrov, they obviously started with how important it is to work hard on both sides to maintain the bilateral channel, to keep open lines of communication together, to collaborate as much as we can on as much as we can, but also to be frank with each other when we have disagreements," she said on Feb. 6.

"Do you find this inconsistent with Foreign Minister Lavrov's having said it was important to keep lines of communication open that he won't take the call?" Nuland was asked Friday.

"Again, I'm going to refer you to the Russians," she said.

Former White House Deputy Communications Director Jen Psaki is headed to the State Department to be the new spokeswoman, a potential stepping stone in her path to succeed White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. But first she'll have to master both internal and external diplomacy when she arrives in Foggy Bottom.

Psaki worked with Secretary of State John Kerry during his 2004 presidential run and was reportedly in contention to be White House press secretary before Carney got the job. She worked for the White House in the first term but left to serve as press secretary and spokeswoman for President Barack Obama's 2012 reelection campaign. As a former Kerry and Obama staffer, Psaki is uniquely situated to have influence and credibility with both the State Department and White House leadership.

"Whether it's at the White House or the State Department, there are multiple things you need to be successful, but the first and foremost is the trust and respect of your bosses and Jen has the relationship and the trust of the president and the new secretary, given her work with him in the past," former White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart told The Cable.

Of course, nobody knows if or when Carney will leave his post, but Psaki's upcoming stint at State could certainly help her résumé as she vies for the job.

"When a president looks to appoint a press secretary, they first and foremost look at someone they know and they trust, and secondly someone who has a breadth of experience on a range of issues, whether they be domestic or foreign policy related," Lockhart said.

A former White House senior staffer told The Cable that foreign policy and national security bonafides might just give Psaki the edge in a future competition for Carney's job. Other candidates to replace Carney would be those who have had a significant role on the campaign or are working closely with Carney, such Josh Earnest and Ben Labolt.

"If she does want to be White House press secretary, she needs to go and get foreign policy experience. It's a big part of the job," the former White House staffer said. "The single best way to get experience with foreign policy and national security experience is to work at the State Department or the Pentagon and getting that experience will be the differentiator between Jen or someone else who just has experience on the domestic front."

The quintessential example of a White House press secretary whose foreign policy chops were not up to the job was during the Bush administration, when Dana Perino admitted she had never heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis before it came up in a White House Press Briefing.

"I came home and I asked my husband," she later recalled. "I said, 'Wasn't that like the Bay of Pigs thing?' And he said, 'Oh, Dana.'"

If Psaki eventually replaces Carney at the White House, the model of having a former journalist at the podium would be reversed; a political person would be back at the helm. But at the State Department, Psaki's arrival marks a switch away from having a foreign-service officer speaking for the Department, such as outgoing spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, who was once U.S. Ambassador to NATO.

There is one example in recent history of a State Department spokesman subsequently becoming White House press secretary: Mike McCurry, who spoke for Secretary of State Warren Christopher and President Bill Clinton.

In an interview, McCurry said he has no idea if Psaki is being groomed to replace Carney, but if she is, the State Department is the right place for her to go next.

"There is some logic to it, because if you've gone through the process of doing the State Department daily briefing, the briefing at the White House is easier to undertake. It's a great training ground," he said. "It's the discipline of getting ready for that briefing that really helped me in the White House so much because it teaches you to be as thorough as you can be to track down every bit of information you can get."

Psaki will have plenty of time to prepare. She will arrive at the State Department soon but is expected to take a couple of months to study before braving the podium and the State Department press corps. McCurry warned that the State Department media scrum (including your humble Cable Guy) is better versed in the intricacies and history of the issues they cover than any other press corps in Washington --both a blessing and a curse.

"It's a lot harder work, it's more intellectually stimulating, and the press corps all have graduate degrees in international relations so the challenge of doing the briefing there is a lot better than the comical absurdity of doing the White House briefing," McCurry said.

But if Psaki is smart, she'll take all of that foreign policy knowledge she is about to acquire at State and put it to good use at the White House.

"There were plenty of times I could wax poetic about Nagorno-Karabakh at great length and it was a great way to head off questions on other zestier matters I wanted to avoid," McCurry said.

Psaki will also have to navigate an internal dynamic at the State Department's public affairs bureaucracy, which has been characterized by a measure of bureaucratic confusion and infighting over the last four years. For most of Hillary Clinton's early tenure, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P.J. Crowley pulled double duty as both the manager of the public affairs staff and the podium spokesperson.

Meanwhile, a strategic communications shop run by Clinton confidante Philippe Reines did big picture planning and sometimes clashed with the public affairs regulars. Reines was also a fierce protector of Clinton personally. There was friction all around.

Crowley was unceremoniously relieved of both of his responsibilities after he admitted that he thought the government's treatment of alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning was "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid." Nuland took over at the podium and Mike Hammer was given back to State from the National Security Council to be the new assistant secretary.

Tensions between the different parts of the bureaucracy remained: Nuland's relationship with Hammer's shop, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Dana Smith, simmered for a while and eventually deteriorated into conflict.

When Psaki arrives, she will find a clean slate. Glen Johnson, a former Boston Globe editor, has been brought on as the new strategic communications advisor for Kerry, but the strategic communications shop has been folded back into the regular bureaucracy. Hammer is also expected to move to a new assignment shortly.

Crowley told The Cable that the State Department can be so risk averse that it hampers the effectiveness of public communications. But as a former White House senior staffer, Psaki will likely understand that State can benefit by being more open and more aggressive when playing the politics related to their issues.

"She's coming from the White House and a successful White House understands that you have to be in the middle of the debate to succeed. She'll walk into the State Department where there's a recognition that the State Department has to say something and the impulse is the less the better," said Crowley. "Jen will have to figure out how to operate along that fault line."

"I tilted toward being more forthcoming, reflecting the fact that when we came in 2009 the credibility of the U.S. was not particularly high and in order to repair that we had to communicate more. Now there's been a return to the tradition of the State Department to be less forthcoming," Crowley said.

Crowley said Psaki's effectiveness will also depend on whether she is in the room with the principals when important discussions are taking place and whether she is able to travel with Kerry. We're told she will be on the plane.

McCurry had one last piece of advice for Psaki as she embarks on her new adventure.

"Keep your sense of humor because you're going to need that," he said. "A sense of humor is better than a flak jacket, that's for sure."

The State Department will have to stop humanitarian aid to millions of people, cut foreign assistance to Israel, and delay efforts to ramp up diplomatic security abroad after the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, if sequestration goes into effect next month, according to Secretary of State John Kerry.

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At the beginning of March, across-the-board cuts to all discretionary spending accounts will go into effect, based on the 2011 Budget Control Act and the failure of the "supercommittee" to agree upon discretionary budget cuts in 2012. Congressional appropriators are planning to reorganize those cuts when the continuing resolution that has been temporarily funding the government expires at the end of March, a GOP Congressman told The Cable.

Until then, State and USAID are working on how to adjust to the impending new budget reality and Kerry is warning that the consequences will be severe.

"Sequestration would force the Department and USAID to make across-the-board reductions of $2.6 billion to fiscal 2013 funding levels under the continuing resolution," Kerry wrote in a letter to Sen. Barbara Milkuski (D-MD) on Feb. 11. Cuts of this magnitude would seriously impair our ability to execute our vital missions of national security, diplomacy, and development."

Kerry also said that sequestration would hurt the State Department's efforts to ramp up security for diplomats abroad. State is still waiting for Congress to approve State's request to shift an additional $1 billion to that effort.

"These cuts would severely impair our efforts to enhance the security of U.S. government facilities overseas and ensure the safety of the thousands of U.S. diplomats serving the American people abroad," Kerry wrote.

Here are some specific cuts that Kerry said would be necessary if sequestration happens:

• $200 million cut from humanitarian assistance, which would impact millions of disaster-stricken people$400 million cut from global health funding, hurting efforts to stop HIV/AIDs and child death
• $500 million cut from global security accounts
• $300 million cut from foreign military financing accounts, which could result in cuts to assistance to Israel, Egypt, and Jordan
• $70 million cut from USAID operations accounts

Unspecified cuts to international peacekeeping operations, counter narcotics programs, counterterrorism efforts, and non-proliferation activities

Kerry also warned that the State Department might not be able to effectively provide emergency services to Americans in trouble abroad, to properly vet visa applications, and or issue passports to Americans in a timely manner.

"I hope that Congress can act to avoid these severe, across-the-board cuts to programs that further U.S. national security, advance America's economic interests, protect Americans at home and abroad, and deliver results for the American people," Kerry wrote.

While Americans celebrate the annual Valentine's Day ritual of flowers and chocolate, in Bahrain, Feb. 14 marks the two-year anniversary of the struggle for human rights and fundamental freedoms against the regime -- and blood has already been shed.

It was two years ago today,  on Feb. 14, 2011, that protesters encamped in the Pearl Roundabout in Manama and began the Bahraini version of the Arab Spring. Three days later, the authorities conducted a night raid on those protesters in what became known locally as "Bloody Thursday," and the violence and tension continues to this day.

"Today is the anniversary of the uprising," Jalila Al-Salman, the vice president of the Bahrain Teachers Society, told The Cable today in an interview. "There is a real strike in Bahrain today as a peaceful objection of to what's going on there."

Early in the morning, around 2 a.m., protesters in villages all over Bahrain barricaded the entrances of their neighborhoods as part of a plan to hold a nationwide strike, she said. The police came through around 4 AM to remove the barricades but new ones were set up by around 6 a.m., and shops and restaurants inside the villages did not open. After morning prayers, the villagers started protesting.

"There are rallies all over Bahrain right now and the riot police are spread all over Bahrain to face that. We are expecting injuries all over Bahrain today," she said. "This is just one part of what's happening in Bahrain. It's not a new thing, it's a continuation of what's been going on in Bahrain for two years on a daily basis."

As of Thursday morning , there was already one death as a result of police clashes with protesters. Hussain Al-Jaziri, 16, was killed by a police officer using a shotgun in the village of Daih, according to Mohammed Al-Maskati, president of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, who also sat down Thursday for an interview with The Cable.

"I just spoke with his father by phone," Al-Maskati said as he displayed gruesome photos of the boy's gunshot ridden body. The police prevented the boy's friends from taking him to the hospital and he died while waiting for the ambulance to arrive, he said. "The ambulance driver said it was already too late."

At last December's Manama Security Dialogue, Bahraini Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa  told an international audience that the tension and violence in Bahrain had largely subsided.

"You are aware we had our own experience with the so called ‘Arab Spring' last year," he said. "While relative calm has returned to the kingdom, there are many wounds to be healed on all sides."

"I don't know how they can say that, of course it continues," said Al-Salman. "There are marches every day all over the country."

The government initiated the latest in a series of dialogues with the opposition two weeks ago that was encouraged by the Obama administration.

"The United States welcomes the start of Bahrain's National Dialogue. We're encouraged by the broad participation of Bahraini political groups in the dialogue," outgoing State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Feb. 11. "We view the dialogue as a positive step in a broader process that can result in meaningful reform that meets the aspirations of all of Bahrain's citizens. We believe that efforts to promote engagement and reconciliation among Bahrainis are necessary to long-term stability."

But Al-Salman and Al-Maskati said the dialogue is not a fair process because participation is weighted heavily toward civil-society representatives that are connected to the government. Also, government and police action against peaceful protesters have continued despite the dialogue.

"After the dialogue was announced, the government arrested 45 protesters in one march," Al-Maskati claimed. "And this week, the security services raided several villages to track down and arrest leaders of the protest movement." (This information could not be independently confirmed.)

Al-Salman, Al-Maskati, and Maryam al-Khawaja, the acting head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, are in Washington this week to ask the Obama administration to stand up for human rights in Bahrain. Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, is serving a three-year jail sentence for insulting the regime.

President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address, called for respect for human rights in all countries affected by the Arab Spring.

"In the Middle East, we will stand with citizens as they demand their universal rights, and support stable transitions to democracy. The process will be messy, and we cannot presume to dictate the course of change in countries like Egypt; but we can -- and will -- insist on respect for the fundamental rights of all people," Obama said.

Al-Salman and Al-Maskati said the U.S. government is not acting on Obama's promise with respect to Bahrain.

"The basic thing we need from the U.S. is to change their foreign policy toward Bahrain. They haven't gained anything from the policy over the last two years," said Al-Salman. "They have to push for a solution to the crisis ... if they really care we have to see that in practice."

The activists noted that Secretary of State John Kerry is new in office and this presents an opportunity for new measures to pressure the Bahraini regime, perhaps through targeted sanctions against human rights violators. Kerry has yet to mention Bahrain since taking office.

"It's a good time to tell John Kerry that you need to change your foreign policy toward Bahrain. Words without actions aren't effective anymore," said Al-Maskati.

Not content to wait for the Obama administration or the United Nations to act, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is working on a new bill to punish North Korea for conducting yet another nuclear bomb test.

The Cable has obtained the latest draft of the "North Korea Nonproliferation and Accountability Act of 2013," a bill that was brought up in today's Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting but not approved. One member of the committee, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), held up the bill Wednesday over fears it could "authorize force" so a new committee meeting is being scheduled for Thursday so the bill can be considered again, perhaps with minor language changes meant to mollify Paul.

"There has been extensive military cooperation between the Governments of North Korea and Iran that dates back to the 1980s," the draft reads. "The latest provocative and defiant action by the Government of North Korea represents a direct threat to the United States and to our regional allies and partners."

The latest North Korean test is a violation United Nations Security Council Resolutions 825 (1993), 1540 (2004), 1695 (2006), 1718 (2006), 1874 (2009), and 2087 (2013), the bill declares, and the United States and its partners should impose sanctions provided for under those resolutions.

"The United States Government should seek a new round of United Nations Security Council sanctions, including the public identification of all North Korean and foreign banks, business, and government agencies suspected of violating United Nations Security Council resolutions, and implementing necessary measures to ensure enforcement of such sanctions," the bill reads.

It also calls on all U.N. member states to increase their efforts to prevent the export of military and dual-use technologies to North Korea and step up efforts to prevent financial transactions that benefit the North Korean government.

The U.S. government should explore ways to increase military cooperation with Asian allies and push the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Human Rights Council to adopt the recommendation in the recent report of Marzuki Darusman, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, that an inquiry mechanism should be established to investigate North Korea's "grave, widespread and systematic violations of human rights," the law states.

The law in its current form would also require Secretary of State John Kerry to report to Congress by May 15 on U.S. policy towards North Korea "based on a full and complete interagency review of current policy and possible alternatives, including North Korea's weapons of mass destruction and missile programs and human rights atrocities. The report shall include recommendations for such legislative or administrative action as the Secretary considers appropriate in light of the results of the review."

The committee also finalized new subcommittee leadership posts at the business meeting today.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) retains her chairmanship of the subcommittee on international operations and organizations, human rights, democracy, and global women's issues, but she will now have to contend with Paul as the new ranking Republican on that panel.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) takes over the subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs following Jim Webb's retirement, and his new Republican is Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who gave up his leadership post on the subcommittee on Western Hemisphere affairs, perhaps to bolster his non-Latin foreign policy bonafides ahead of a 2016 presidential run.

New SFRC member John McCain (R-AZ) replaces Rubio as ranking Republican on the Western Hemisphere panel, working now with subcommittee chairman Tom Udall (D-NM). Bob Casey (D-PA) remains chairman of the subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian affairs, with ranking Republican James Risch (R-ID).

Chris Coons (D-DE), the only Swahili-fluent member of Congress, will stay as African affairs subcommittee head and he will be paired with freshman senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Christopher Murphy (D-CT) takes over the European affairs subcommittee from Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). Ron Johnson (R-WY) will be the ranking Republican for Europe. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and John Barasso (R-WY) will lead the subcommittee on international development and foreign assistance.

Secretary of State John Kerry called all the foreign ministers of countries that deal with North Korea following Monday's nuclear test and all but one of them picked up the phone -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

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Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Kerry made his first remarks about the new nuclear test, which the North Koreans warned the State Department about in advance.

"With respect to the DPRK, President Obama made it crystal clear last night and previously in all comments, as have other countries, that North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program are a threat now to the United States of America, because of what they are pursuing specifically, as well as to global security and peace," Kerry said.

"Following their latest provocation, which we have termed and believe is reckless and provocative, needlessly, I called Foreign Minister Kim of South Korea, I talked to Foreign Minister Kishida of Japan, I talked to Foreign Minister Yang of China, and we have placed a phone call to Foreign Minister Lavrov, and consulted with all of them with respect to the steps that we need to take," Kerry went on. "The international community now needs to come together with a swift and clear, strong, credible response, as pledged in the U.N. Security Council Resolution 2087."

The now-defunct six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program included the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and Russia. But Russia's leaders are the only members of that group with whom Kerry hasn't spoken this week.

At Wednesday's State Department press briefing, outgoing Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland denied that Kerry was frantically trying to reach Lavrov. (The Cable has confirmed that Nuland will soon be replaced at the podium by White House Deputy Press Secretary Jen Psaki.)

"There's been nothing frantic about it. He reached out to Foreign Minister Lavrov yesterday, made it clear again today that he's ready to talk whenever Foreign Minister Lavrov can find the time," Nuland said.

On Tuesday, Nuland said that Kerry had called Lavrov early in the morning and was hoping to connect with him by the end of that day. Lavrov has been traveling in Africa, she noted.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had similar difficulty reaching Lavrov quickly by phone. In early 2012, Lavrov was traveling in Australia and didn't return Clinton's call about a pending U.N. resolution on Syria.

One reporter asked Nuland Wednesday whether the State Department had communicated to the Russian Foreign Ministry its displeasure of Russia's announcement that it will continue to fulfill arms sales contracts to the Syrian regime.

"I think it's fair to say... that in every conversation with a senior Russian leader, from President Putin through Foreign Minister Lavrov and all the way down, the issue of Russia's continued resupply of Syria comes up," Nuland said.

"Maybe you could text him," one reporter joked.

In his State of the Union speech Tuesday evening, U.S. President Barack Obama significantly scaled down his rhetoric on the Syria crisis, lowering the high expectations he set only a year ago.

"We will keep the pressure on a Syrian regime that has murdered its own people, and support opposition leaders that respect the rights of every Syrian," Obama said Tuesday.

But in his 2012 State of the Union Address, Obama made a bold prediction that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government would quickly come to the realization that change in Syria was inevitable.

"As the tide of war recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo; from Sana'a to Tripoli. A year ago, Qaddafi was one of the world's longest-serving dictators -- a murderer with American blood on his hands. Today, he is gone," Obama said last year. "And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change cannot be reversed, and that human dignity cannot be denied."

He now seems have some doubt.

Obama's 2012 speech came only five months after he first declared that Assad had to go.

"The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way," Obama said in a written statement in August 2011. "For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside."

Now, 18 months after that call, Assad remains in place and the civil war in Syria rages on, with an estimated 70,000 civilian deaths, according to the United Nations. The Obama administration has resisted getting involved in the conflict other than through the dispersal of a limited amount of humanitarian aid.

The New York Times revealed recently that the White House decided not to arm and train elements of the Syrian opposition last summer over the objections of the State Department, the Defense Department, and the CIA.

Obama did say Tuesday, "In the Middle East, we will stand with citizens as they demand their universal rights, and support stable transitions to democracy."

"The process will be messy, and we cannot presume to dictate the course of change in countries like Egypt; but we can -- and will -- insist on respect for the fundamental rights of all people," he said. "And we will stand steadfast with Israel in pursuit of security and a lasting peace. These are the messages I will deliver when I travel to the Middle East next month."

He didn't explicitly mention the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, though he did salute "the courage and sacrifice of those who serve in dangerous places at great personal risk -- our diplomats, our intelligence officers, and the men and women of the United States Armed Forces."

Note: Obama made much stronger comments about the fate of the Assad regime in a video message released late last month. Here's what he said:

We're under no illusions.  The days ahead will continue to be very difficult.  But what's clear is that the regime continues to weaken and lose control of territory.  The opposition continues to grow stronger.  More Syrians are standing up for their dignity.  The Assad regime will come to an end.  The Syrian people will have their chance to forge their own future.  And they will continue to find a partner in the United States of America. 

North Korea warned the State Department it would test a nuclear weapon, U.S. officials acknowledged Tuesday, but they refused to confirm explicitly that the warning came through what's known as the "New York channel."

Secretary of State John Kerry was not caught off guard by Monday's nuclear test, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters Tuesday.

"As you know, there had been some reason to believe that the North Koreans might take this provocative step, so he had been briefed. He was well-prepared in advance," Nuland said.

Pressed by reporters to explain exactly how Kerry knew the test was coming, Nuland acknowledged that the North Korean government had given the State Department a head's up.

"The DPRK did inform us at the State Department of their intention to conduct a nuclear test without citing any specific timing prior to the event," she said.

Nuland declined to say when the warning was given, but South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that North Korea warned both Washington and Beijing about the test during the day on Monday.

Nuland also wouldn't say how the warning was conveyed. "It was our usual channel. Let's put it that way," she said. She added that the message was received "at the level that we usually deal with that channel at, which is sort of deputy desk director or manager for that account."

Reporters unsuccessfully pressed Nuland to admit that she was referring to what's commonly known in Asia policy circles as the "New York channel," which has been the method for the U.S. government to communicate with the North Korean government for decades.

A former U.S. official who worked on North Korea in past administrations described how the "New York channel" works in an interview Tuesday with The Cable.

"Basically what happens is, at North Korea's U.N mission in New York, there's a person there who is specially designated as the point of contact for the United States. All the other people there work on other issues," the former official said. "It's been the main channel of communication between the North Korean government and the U.S. government. We don't have any other channels we use."

That person is currently Han Song-ryol, North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, who also represented North Korea at two unofficial meetings with U.S. interlocutors in 2012 that were reported by The Cable, one in Singapore and one in Dalian, China.

Han and his small staff have been setting up so-called Track 2 meetings and passing letters between Pyongyang and Washington for years, but that's not his only job. He is also the lead North Korea official for dealing with any Americans who want to do business with North Korea. He links U.S. businessmen to North Korea contacts, he helped arrange the Google trip to North Korea last month, and he coordinates with NGOs who work in North Korea, the former official said.

So why is the State Department so reluctant to just admit what many people know: that the U.S. government uses the New York channel to talk to North Korea?

"They're afraid of their shadows," the former official said. "It's like ‘No one can know we are actually communicating with these people because they are bad.'"