Rice demand nukes Korean 'peace
regime' By Donald Kirk
SEOUL - The concept of a "peace regime"
has come into vogue as the favorite catchphrase of
Korean negotiators and think-tankers as they plan
for a future of reconciliation and pan-Korean
unification once they've done away with a few
lingering annoyances to do with US bases and North
Korean nukes.
But this idyllic vision of
peace and goodwill clashed with hard realities in
ministerial-level North-South Korean talks that
ended in bitter dispute on Friday. The sticking
point was the North's demand for rice and the
South's refusal to send anything until the
North
shuts down the five-megawatt reactor at its
nuclear complex at Yongbyon.
The failure
to paper over differences marked the worst setback
so far in efforts to get North Korea to live up to
the terms of the six-nation agreement of February
13 in which the North promised to turn off the
reactor within 60 days, by April 14.
The
South Korean side, talking up a "peace regime" for
the whole peninsula, was fortunate to have come
out of the talks with a less-than-face-saving
joint statement in which North and South agreed to
"continue to study the issues to promote peace,
reconciliation and cooperation".
Considering that North Korean negotiators
had flatly refused to go along with any statement
earlier in the day, that much was considered a
minor success in talks that may have set the
process on a backward course. Or, as Yonhap, the
South Korean news agency, quoted one observer as
saying, "The South tried desperately to put a
gloss on the rupture of the dialogue."
Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung,
criticized for showing a propensity for yielding
to North Korea's demands, seemed to be breathing a
sigh of relief, only "thankful we can hold a
closing meeting", after the North Korean side
seemed to have decided to walk out of the whole
show without so much as a polite concluding
handshake.
Lee, in four days of talks,
persisted in telling his North Korean counterpart,
State Councillor Kwon Ho-ung, "It's important to
establish a peace regime." Kwon, however, got the
sessions off to an inauspicious start on the first
day by blaming "the intervention of foreign
powers" for all that's gone wrong with fulfilling
the nuclear agreement.
South Korean
negotiators embellished on the concept of "a peace
regime" with talk about "confidence-building
measures", including the opening of rail services
on the newly laid track to the Kaesong economic
zone in the west and the Kumgang tourist zone in
the east, but Kwon puts his own spin on that
theme. Without saying a thing about the railroad,
he advocated "inter-Korean cooperation" in what is
widely viewed as just another call for the South
to do away with close military ties to the US.
That's a view that finds wide acceptance
in South Korea among those who have been forming
government policy as President Roh Moo-hyun casts
about for a dramatic event, possibly a summit with
North Korea's Kim Jong-il, before the December
presidential election. Chances of a summit
appeared bleak, however, after Roh clearly decided
one can only go so far in granting concessions and
said no way was the South going to send rice as
promised as long as that reactor was still humming
away.
While North and South Korean
negotiators were talking past each other, Lim
Dong-won, the architect of the "Sunshine Policy"
formulated by Roh's predecessor, Kim Dae-jung,
talked up the "peace regime" idea at a symposium
featuring a lineup of leading advocates of
reconciliation.
At the core of his
concept, at least for starters, is "normalization"
of relations between Washington and Pyongyang, by
which, he said, "Mutual enmity will be defused and
North Korea will gain economic benefits and
security guarantees." Lim professed to have been
heartened by what he saw as "a new approach" by
the US toward North Korea with Washington deciding
"to pursue resolution of the North Korean nuclear
issue in parallel with normalization of relations
between the US and the DPRK [Democratic People's
Republic of Korea]".
He showed no doubts
about implementing the six-nation agreement "in a
thorough tit-for-tat approach" of "action for
action"- admittedly "a time-consuming process" -
before ending in "a complete resolution".
Just how much time and patience will be
needed was clear not only from the talks in Seoul
but also from the gyrations of the US's chief
envoy, Christopher Hill, as he traipsed around the
region, winding up finally in Beijing where he
plaintively remarked that he believed the North
Koreans "want to get going on their obligations"
since there is "no purpose in their nuclear
[facilities] being in operation today". There is,
however, a very obvious purpose, as North Korea's
Kwon made clear, telling the South Koreans, "The
US is responsible for the delay, not our side."
The problem is that US$25 million in North
Korean accounts lingers on in Banco Delta Asia
(BDA) in Macau, and the North Koreans see no
reason to haul it out in cash even though Macau
authorities have lifted the freeze imposed on the
account after the US Treasury Department said any
firm dealing with the bank could not do business
with the US. While the US has removed that
stricture, North Korea wants to retrieve the funds
through the international banking system - and no
bank, including the Bank of China, wants to touch
the stuff. Pyongyang will not act on its nuclear
promises until it gets the money.
The
North Koreans refrained from berating the South
Koreans on the BDA issue while zeroing in on South
Korea's refusal to send hundreds of thousands of
tons of rice, fertilizer and other forms of aid.
A South Korean official, as the talks
began, told this writer emphatically, "Rice is not
on the agenda." But it came out on the first day
in talks on sidelines of the conference in Seoul's
Grand Hilton Hotel, on the northern fringe of the
city away from possible demonstrations in central
Seoul. South Korea's rejoinder on the rice issue,
of course, is that massive shipments will be on
the way the moment the North flicks the off switch
on the reactor.
North and South Korean
negotiators appeared to have spent a lot of time
talking past each other. South Korean negotiators
- as part of their "peace regime" - were anxious
to get the North to agree at least on opening rail
services on the new line to the Kaesong economic
zone, just beyond the demilitarized zone that has
separated the two Koreas since the Korean War. The
North Koreans, though, showed no interest in the
line - even though they acquiesced to a test run
on May 17 in a blaze of publicity in South Korea
and very little mention in the North Korean media.
South Korea's notion of a "peace regime"
also clearly conflicts with the US view, even
though President George W Bush has toned down the
hardline rhetoric bandied about several years ago.
Bush raised eyebrows in Seoul by
suggesting that South Korea might be a model for
the future deployment of US forces in Iraq, a
concept that contradicts demands among South
Korean activists for complete withdrawal of the
29,500 US troops still in the country. US efforts
to compare the war in Iraq with long-term defense
of South Korea implied that US troops will not
only stay permanently in Iraq but also will never
leave South Korea.
In Iraq, as in South
Korea, said Tony Snow, the presidential spokesman,
US troops might "come to the assistance of the
Iraqis" even though "you do not want the United
States forever in front".
That idea did
not, however, appear likely to win over the South
Koreans with the most influence over policy these
days. Rather, said Lim Dong-won, the six-party
talks framework could produce "not only military
security" but "a comprehensive security
regime".
Paik Hak-soon, senior research
fellow at the Sejong Institute, closely affiliated
with the government, amplified on this view. "The
North Koreans contend that the US forces should
withdraw from South Korea as it is no longer
necessary for them to station in South Korea"
under the aegis of the United Nations Command, the
cover organization set up at the outset of the
Korean War, under which US forces stay in the
South. "North Korea will naturally demand
dissolution of the UN command," he said, in talks
in which a formal peace treaty replaces the Korean
War armistice.
North Korea, said Paik,
"has demanded that US forces in South Korea change
their status and roles from a hostile army against
North Korea to a peace-keeping army" - one that
helps maintain "stability and balance in Northeast
Asia as well as the Korean Peninsula".
That vision, though, appeared far removed
from the talks under way a few miles away in the
hotel where Kwon held "intervention of foreign
powers" - notably the US but also Japan -
responsible for sabotaging the nuclear deal. "What
is agreed upon between the two Koreas is being
suspended," he said, referring to South Korea's
promise to send rice, "and the inter-Korean
relationship is being edged out by foreign
powers."
Journalist Donald Kirk
has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30
years. (Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about
sales, syndication and republishing.)
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