North Koreans let their feet do the
talking By Donald Kirk
SEOUL - The ruckus over the North Korean
missile shots has exploded into a war of words
that's endangering South Korea's efforts to shrug
off the crisis as a minor obstacle on the path to
North-South reconciliation.
South Korea
appears to have awakened to the depth of the
difficulties with the North in the breakdown of
ministerial-level talks this week in the port city
of Pusan. Far from finding the basis for one of
those face-saving statements that often emerge
from North-South Korean talks, the two sides cut
off the dialogue on Thursday a day earlier than
expected after finding no ground for agreement.
The sides were absurdly far apart,
according to reports from the closed-door
sessions, with North Korea insisting the missiles
were needed for the
defense of all Korea, North and South, not just
North Korea.
Finally, the North Koreans
walked out on Thursday after South Korea's
Unification Minister Lee Jeong-seok flatly
rejected their claim that the North's Songun or
military first policy covered both Koreas equally.
The talks were originally to have gone on until
Friday.
Lee, a one-time leftwing activist
who has sought mightily to paper over North-South
differences, got nowhere in efforts at persuading
North Korea to return to six-party talks on its
nuclear weapons.
At the same time, he
rejected North Korean demands for half a million
tons of rice and several hundred thousand tons of
fertilizer to help feed starving North Koreans at
a time when the government is investing heavily in
missiles and nuclear weapons.
The failure
of the talks is ominous since they were
"ministerial level". The North Korean delegation
was led by Kwong Ho-ung, chief cabinet councilor.
The North Koreans, before boarding a direct flight
from Pusan to Pyongyang on Air Koryo, the North
Korean airline, said "our delegation was no longer
able to stay in Pusan" as a result of the South
Koreans' "reckless" insistence on raising the
issue of the missile tests.
Suggesting the
seriousness of the collapse, a statement
distributed by the North Koreans said the North
now had no dialogue partners in the South "due to
the South Korean side's unreasonable" position.
The statement said they had not come to Pusan to
discuss military matters or six-party talks.
South Korean leaders, caught between
conflicting demands from the United States, North
Korea, China and Japan as well as their
vituperative critics and foes on their own home
front, remain determined to head off US and
Japanese attempts to bring about a debate in the
United Nations Security Council on sanctions
against North Korea.
South Korean
officials firmly favor a resolution introduced by
China and Russia that "strongly deplores" the
missile tests and calls on all nations to
"exercise vigilance in preventing supply of items,
goods and technologies" for North Korean missiles.
The resolution also asks them "not to procure
missiles or missile-related items" from North
Korea.
The fear in the South is that a
debate on a much tougher Japanese resolution,
banning North Korea from deploying or testing
missiles, importing or exporting missiles or
weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear
warheads, or developing any of them, would greatly
exacerbate tensions.
South Korean
strategists believe such a strong resolution would
arm Japan with the pretext for following through
on threats to attack North Korean missile sites.
In fact, South Korea has responded with far
greater alarm to Japan's floating this idea than
to the actual missile tests, while the rift
between Japan and South Korea has turned into what
appears as an unbridgeable chasm.
A
spokesman for South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun
blasted Japan for what he called a "rash and
thoughtless" threat. It was, he said, "a grave
matter for Japanese cabinet ministers to talk
about the possibility of a preemptive strike and
the validity of the use of force against the
peninsula".
US officials, led by
Christopher Hill, privately warned Japan against a
preemptive strike, reminding the Japanese that
open discussion of that possibility only invited
an adverse response from South Korea as well as
China.
Such talk, they note, also plays
into North Korea's propaganda machine, which often
emits noises about US plans for a "preemptive
strike", citing that danger as a rationale for the
need for nuclear weapons.
The US, however,
sides with Japan in the United Nations, and no US
official adopts a harder line than the US
ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, a tough-talker
from his days as under secretary of state for arms
control during President George W Bush's first
term.
Bolton and Japan's UN Ambassador
Kenzo Oshima have engaged in the diplomatic nicety
of calling the Chinese and Russian draft "a step
in the right direction". South Korean officials
believe, however, they may hold off on supporting
it, calling instead for a debate that gives both
of them a forum for lambasting North Korea.
Oshima found "very serious gaps" in the
Chinese and Russian draft, while Bolton seemed
anxious to have the Japanese resolution submitted
to a vote despite the certainty of Chinese and
Russian vetoes. "We're prepared to proceed at an
appropriate time with a vote," said Bolton, and
"let everyone draw their own conclusions."
The standoff over how to deal with North
Korea comes at a critical time in relations
between the US and South Korea. A US team has just
arrived in Seoul for talks about creating an
"independent wartime command" for South Korean
forces rather than a unified command led by a US
general.
The creation of such a command
marks a major - and controversial - departure from
the system dating from the Korean War placing all
forces under a single American general in the
event of war.
The US is also consolidating
its bases in South Korea, moving them south of
Seoul in the face of widespread opposition by
activists and farmers resentful of the loss of
their land while the US scales down its forces,
now totaling 29,500 troops, down from 37,000 three
years ago.
Activists and farmers also
oppose efforts by the US and South Korea to come
up with a free trade agreement (FTA). More than
20,000 people demonstrated in a heavy downpour in
central Seoul on Wednesday, charging the agreement
would deprive farmers and factory workers of their
livelihoods.
While the North Koreans
walked out of the talks in Pusan, US negotiators
boycotted a session of the FTA talks in Seoul on
pharmaceuticals. The US claims a plan for South
Korea to reimburse patients for the purchase of
drugs made in South Korea makes drug imports here
virtually impossible.
It was a bad day all
around for US negotiators. Hill, in Beijing, said
he was finally taking off for Washington after
getting nowhere in efforts at persuading China to
bring North Korea back to the table. He tried,
however, to see the impasse from China's
viewpoint.
"China has done so much for
that country," he said, "and that country seems
intent on taking all of China's generosity and
then giving nothing back." The Chinese, he said,
"are as baffled as we are."
The US and
China, however, seemed in complete disagreement on
US Treasury Department restrictions on firms doing
business with North Korea. Hill had nothing to say
in response to the official Chinese hope,
expressed by a spokesman, that the US would "make
a concession regarding the sanctions issue and
take steps that will help restore the six-party
talks".
The US denies it's imposing
"sanctions" and says the restrictions are to
counter North Korean counterfeiting. Hill has
repeatedly dismissed the topic as a matter for the
Treasury, not the State Department, while North
Korea has made the issue the reason for not
returning to talks on its nukes.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been
covering Korea - and the confrontation of forces
in northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
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