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The place chosen for a negotiation, though Harold Nicolson noted that ‘professional diplomatists’ considered it ‘rather vulgar’ to use this word, no doubt because of its association with sport and popular entertainment. For both practical and political reasons the choice of a venue is rarely arbitrary. Venue may be significant either by virtue of the country, the precise location within the country, or the building in question - or sometimes by virtue of all three. For example, the exploratory encounters between the United States and North Korea, which eventually led to the signing in Geneva in 1994 of the agreement between them on nuclear matters, began at an official Chinese venue: the International Club in Beijing, which is a facility belonging to the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs. The fact that China\'s good offices (sense 1) had been accepted made any subsequent informal Chinese mediation more likely and secrecy easy to obtain; Beijing itself was one of the few sites where both the United States and North Korea had major embassies; while choice of the International Club within the city (rather than one or other of the embassies) reinforced the neutrality of the setting and made Chinese support for the talks easier still. |
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