http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/03/14/M
N209827.DTL
Bush's remarks on leader bring speculation
North Korea abruptly canceled a round of negotiations with South Korea
yesterday, putting on hold talks intended to relax tensions between the two
countries -- a halt apparently triggered by President Bush's toughened
approach to the North. South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, who won the Nobel
Peace Prize last year for his efforts to woo North Korea to the negotiating
table, returned last week from a visit with Bush in Washington. While former
President Bill Clinton's diplomats had paralleled Kim's overtures with their
own opening to the North, Bush said the United States would halt such efforts
while the new administration conducted a review of its policy. Yesterday,
only hours before North Korean officials were to visit the South, the
delegation's leader, Jon Kum Jin, phoned his South Korean counterpart,
Unification Minister Park Jae Kyu, to say that his delegation would not
attend. Park said Jon told him that, "considering various circumstances, we
cannot participate." The talks were to have been the fifth round since Kim
visited the North last June for the first summit between leaders of both
Koreas. That meeting led the Clinton administration to accelerate efforts --
including a visit to Pyongyang by then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
-- to reach a deal with North Korea to halt its development and export of
missiles. Bush has repeatedly expressed "skepticism" over both Clinton's
diplomacy and Kim's overtures to the North. Bush said he expressed "support
for his vision as well as my skepticism about whether we can verify an
agreement" with the North when he met with Kim in Washington on Thursday.
"We're not certain as to whether or not (North Korea is) keeping all terms of
all agreements" it has signed, Bush said in a news conference last week. That
statement has led numerous commentators in South Korea and elsewhere to note
that the North is party to only one security agreement with the United States
-- on the processing of plutonium -- to which it apparently has adhered. In a
speech yesterday to graduating cadets at the Korea Military College, the
South Korean president tried to put the best face on his sharp disagreements
with Bush. "Washington is in a stage of reviewing its North Korea policy,"
Kim said. "It is only after completing the review that the United States will
be able to decide whether or not to pick up where the Clinton administration
left off or readjust the course." At the same time, in a step to further
improve its relations with the North, South Korea announced that it would
ship $18 million in humanitarian assistance to North Korea, which has
suffered several years of agricultural and economic collapse that has led to
widespread starvation. Included will be children's clothing, fruit, potatoes
and medicines, the government said.
