US makes partial peace with South
Korea By Donald Kirk
SEOUL - On the day that North Korea took
the first step toward disabling its nuclear
reactor, the upcoming return of an accused
financier trumped the nuclear issue as the
headline-grabbing issue in South Korea's
hard-fought presidential campaign.
The US
State Department described the decision to
extradite Kim Gyeong-jun as a routine matter, but
South Korean conservatives saw it as a sign of US
anxiety to stay on the good side of the
government in Seoul at a
sensitive time in US-Korean relations.
Aides and advisers to the conservative
presidential candidate, Lee Myung-bak, went into
overdrive in anticipation of the trouble Kim may
cause when he arrives in South Korea in about two
weeks to face trial on charges of embezzling more
than US$40 million from companies in which Lee was
once a partner.
The fear is that Kim under
interrogation by prosecutors will try to draw Lee
into the net, implicating him in an asset
management firm known by the initials BBK in which
he says Lee was a partner and Lee claims only to
have been an investor. Kim withdrew his appeal
against extradition on October 18, giving the US
State Department the 60 days required by law in
which to send him back before the election on
December 19.
No sooner had word come from
Washington that the State Department had gone
along with the extradition, as ordered by a
California court, than Lee's camp convened an
emergency meeting to decide how to fight the case
from both public relations and legal viewpoints.
Ideally, said conservatives, the scandal
will blow over, and Lee will remain far ahead of
his closest rival, Chung Dong-young, a former
unification minister and candidate of the United
New Democratic Party, an amalgam of factions that
shares the common goal of perpetuating the
government's policy of reconciliation with North
Korea.
Ideally for liberals and leftists,
prosecutors will summon Lee for intensive
questioning, forcing him to detour off the
campaign trail while his image appears on front
pages and on TV news walking in and out of
interrogation sessions. The worst-case scenario is
that prosecutors will ask a court to "detain" Lee
- that is, hold him for more interrogation and
possible indictment. Such an extreme measure,
commonplace in investigations of massive
corruption, is seen as highly unlikely, however,
considering the crisis it would precipitate. "They
will not do that," predicted one official, talking
anonymously. "The case will not be that serious."
Lee Bang-ho, secretary general of the
opposition Grand National Party (GNP), was quoted
by Yonhap, the government-owned news agency, as
saying that top GNP aides had "held an urgent
discussion to come up with strategies" immediately
after getting word that Kim would be returning.
That session was undoubtedly of far
greater import to Lee than a meeting in Beijing
between US nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill and
his long-time North Korean counterpart Kim
Kye-gwan before a US team flew to Pyongyang for
the very first step in disabling the North Korean
nuclear complex.
"BBK", as the case is
known, and the nuclear issue are intertwined,
however, in the fabric of a US-Korean relationship
that has rarely been so delicately woven - or in
such danger of shredding.
The US,
steadfastly clinging to the US-Korean alliance, is
parrying pressure to drop North Korea from the
State Department's list of nations sponsoring
terrorism and then to agree on a "peace treaty"
with North Korea formally ending the Korean War.
The US administration, seemingly hard line toward
North Korea in the first few years after the
inauguration of President George W Bush to his
first term in 2000, has grown increasingly
enthusiastic about six-party talks that resulted
in the nuclear agreement of February 13 under
which North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear
program.
That shift in policy represents a
compromise as the South Korean government embraces
reconciliation as seen in the North-South summit
in Pyongyang in early October in which President
Roh Moo-hyun and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il
agreed on wide-ranging economic measures a day
after diplomats at the six-party talks signed off
on a timeframe for North Korea to disable its
nuclear facilities and provide details on its
entire nuclear program by the end of this year.
Since then, insiders on Roh's staff have
been insistent about a peace treaty before North
Korea has gone through the process while the US
holds out the prospect of a treaty as a reward for
North Korea making good on its promises. In that
context, the State Department decided to extradite
Kim Gyeong-jun before the whole issue of what to
do about him jeopardized shaky rapport between
Washington and Seoul on the nuclear issue.
Caught in the middle, Foreign Minister
Song Min-soon danced an intricate minuet as he
responded to questions from foreign correspondents
on Thursday about when or whether South Korea was
asking the US to go along with a peace treaty as
advocated by Roh's aides.
That issue, he
said, was "directly related to the North Korean
nuclear issue", but discussion would take place
"at an appropriate time" - and "in a separate
forum" from the six-party talks.
He was
clearly hopeful, though, about a peace arrangement
that would substantially reduce deep-seated
tensions on the Korean Peninsula. "Normalization
of relations between the DPRK [Democratic People's
Republic of Korea] and the US and improvement of
relations between the two Koreas will mean the end
of the armistice regime," said Song, referring to
the Korean War truce signed in July 1953. "That is
the beginning of the peace regime."
Song
took pains to reword Bush's remark, made during a
meeting in Hanoi last year, that North Korea would
have to dismantle its nuclear program before the
US could go along with a "declaration to end the
Korean war". "We now do not use the term
'declaration of the end of the Korean War'," said
Song, preferring instead to talk about "conclusion
of the peace agreement" or "signing of the peace
treaty".
Song was equally circumspect
about the desire of members of the Roh government
to bring together the leaders of the principle
nations involved in the Korean War, China, the US
and both Koreas, as signatories of a treaty. "If
the denuclearization process sees progress," he
said, "the heads of state of the appropriate
parties could come together and agree on a
declaration." But whether such a happy denouement
was possible, he said, "will depend on the
perspectives of the relative countries". In any
case, he went on, "The parties will continue to
discuss this issue and how well it's going."
Song flies to the US next week for
speeches at Harvard University and in Washington
before seeing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
with whom he's sure to talk about steps toward
achieving a "peace regime", including a treaty.
One topic that he said will not come up
when he sees Rice is removal of North Korea from
the State Department's list of terror-sponsoring
nations. "There is agreement the condition [of
removal of the label] is dismantlement of the
nuclear program."
Song was careful,
however, not to appear overly optimistic. "The
DPRK has disclosed its intention to denuclearize,"
he said, "but I did not say the DPRK had a firm
will. We will have a firm assessment of the DPRK's
position only if the DPRK proves its will," and
"we would like to take it step by step".
Hill, in Beijing, was his usual ebullient
self. He declared the US team going to Pyongyang
was "very highly motivated and ready to go on with
the first stages of the actual disablement" and
"we are very satisfied that we have an overall
plan that will be effective".
Those words
offered cold comfort around Lee Myung-bak's
campaign headquarters, where the assurance that
the BBK case had been "treated like any other
extradition matter under our extradition treaty"
was viewed with skepticism. "Rice could have
waited on the extradition order," said a Lee
supporter. "She didn't want to have to talk about
it when she sees Song next week."
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
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