A former U.S. State Department expert on North Korea is calling for comprehensive negotiations with Pyongyang in order to resolve the nuclear issue.

Joel Wit broke down his prescribed path the Obama administration should take with North Korea in a Monday seminar at Yonsei University in Seoul.

Wit suggests the U.S. be willing to approach the North for negotiations at whatever level necessary in order to reap results from the engagement process and speed up the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

He said Pyongyang wants to improve its ties with Washington while at the same time continuing to possess nuclear weapons.

Wit, a current fellow at the East Asia Institute of Columbia University, served in the State Department from 1986 to 2002 and played a role in administering the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework between the North and the U.S.