On May 23 Mongolia provided North Korea and the United States neutral ground in its capital for track 1.5 meetings. Presumably, North Korea’s chief nuclear envoy met with two former U.S. State Department officials to discuss resumption of the Six Party Talks, which have been at a complete standstill since 2009. Ulan Bator has been keen on normalizing Pyongyang’s fractious relations with its adversaries and assist its Soviet-era ally in implementing economic reform. In this way, Mongolia has unveiled an alternative strategy that could incrementally reconfigure Pyongyang’s behavior, offering the U.S. some lessons for its failing North Korea policy.

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