Likely U.S. envoy to Iraq is a fan of direct diplomacy

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The man tipped as the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq said on Tuesday he believed it was vital in diplomacy to talk to enemies as well as friends.

Chris Hill has spent the last four years under former President George W. Bush as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and as the senior U.S. official in multilateral talks on ending North Korea's nuclear programs.

A U.S. official who asked not to be named said on Monday Hill was expected to be appointed ambassador to Iraq, where President Barack Obama has pledged to withdraw American troops still in that country nearly six years after the U.S.-led invasion.

Hill refused to comment on Iraq or his future and stuck to the topic of North Korea in a speech at the Asia Society in New York.

"My writ stops with the Himalayas," he joked in answer to a question about Iran's nuclear ambitions -- the closest he came to discussing the region where he may soon be working.

He said Iran and North Korea, both suspected by the United States of trying to develop nuclear weapons, presented very different challenges -- "No more or no less dangerous, but certainly different."

He said the six-party talks format had at least succeeded in halting North Korea from producing more plutonium since it started and should be strengthened under the new U.S. administration. A similar format would not necessarily translate to Iran, he said, but he did advocate direct diplomacy.

"I have found that it's much better to make sure your interlocutor, sometimes your adversary, understands very clearly what your views are," Hill said. "The way to do that is to express them directly.

"Some of these undemocratic societies, they go and just listen to each other and by the time you get to see them, you've got to psych them down from some ridiculous positions," he said. "Diplomacy does involve talking to people you fundamentally disagree with."

Obama courted controversy during his campaign by pledging to engage more closely with countries such as Iran, which denies it is seeking nuclear weapons but is defying U.N. resolutions calling for it to stop enriching uranium.

Pyongyang agreed in 2005 to abandon its nuclear programs under a deal struck by the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States but it then tested a nuclear device in 2006.

The secretive, communist state subsequently reached more detailed pacts to dismantle its plutonium-based nuclear program but it has balked at allowing extensive inspections that would allow the United States to verify its actions.

It is unclear how the Obama administration plans to get North Korea back on track with the aid-for-disarmament deal or whether it may consider a more intense bilateral dialogue.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to visit Japan, South Korea and China in mid-February.

Hill said the North Koreans were "complete momentum killers," so it was important for the United States to strengthen and broaden the six-party talks.

He said Pyongyang must not only to disable its Yongbyon reactor but also give up the estimated 30 kg of plutonium it produced before the six-party talks began.

"We're going to have to pick up the pace and move more quickly to sustain our own interest in the process."