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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (1954)	3/9/2001 6:40:48 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

Seoul's Kim Presses for U.S. Role "Both in the interview with The Washington Post and earlier in his luncheon speech, Kim made the case that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is ready to settle differences with the United States." By Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, March 9, 2001; Page A22 South Korean President Kim Dae Jung made a plea yesterday for the United States to "seize the opportunity" to negotiate with North Korea, just one day after President Bush and other senior U.S. officials said they did not trust Pyongyang and would not rush to resume talks begun under President Clinton. "We must not lose this opportunity," Kim said in a luncheon speech at the American Enterprise Institute . "We must assist so that North Korea can continue on the path of change. We must help so that it does not return to its old ways. . . . I truly believe it is our responsibility and duty to seize this opportunity we have for peace," he added. Kim's sense of urgency contrasted with comments by Bush administration officials over the past two days, though the two leaders refrained from criticizing each other and pledged to work together. In a meeting with Kim on Wednesday, Bush stressed his distrust of North Korea, and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell later said "there's no hurry" to restart negotiations while the administration reviews its policy. In an interview at Blair House yesterday afternoon, Kim said, "South Korea-North Korea relations can advance only so far without progress in U.S.-North Korea relations. These two must move in parallel." While some policy experts have suggested that the United States might play a "bad cop" role while South Korea plays "good cop" toward the North, Kim said, "the idea I have of role sharing is more complementary. I would not ask a good ally to play a bad cop role." "My sense is that one element all members of the Bush administration have is a certain amount of reservation about North Korea," added the South Korean president, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring democracy to South Korea and ease military tensions on his divided peninsula. Both in the interview with The Washington Post and earlier in his luncheon speech, Kim made the case that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is ready to settle differences with the United States. "I am aware that some read the changes on the part of North Korea as being merely temporary or tactical," he said at lunch ."Whether the changes are strategic or tactical, one thing is certain. For North Korea, change is not a matter of choice but of survival." North Korea's top priority, he added, "is to build better ties with the United States. It seems to be well aware that for assurance of its security and economic assistance, improved relations with the United States are essential." And he portrayed the North Korean leader as someone well-informed about the outside world, a good listener and a quick decision-maker, perhaps the only one who matters in his country. The two held nine hours of talks during a three-day summit meeting in Pyongyang last June. Separately yesterday, during testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Powell tried to reconcile comments that he, Bush and other administration officials have made about North Korea. Powell sounded a tough note by calling it a "failed society" with a "despotic" and "broken" regime. At the same time, he repeated his earlier remark that elements of the negotiations that took place under Clinton were "very promising." Those negotiations had made progress toward an accord in which North Korea would stop developing and exporting missiles in return for economic assistance. "What was not there was a monitoring and verification regime of the kind that we would have to have in order to move forward in negotiations with such a regime," Powell said. Kim argued yesterday that the North Korean leader has shown, through a New Year's statement on the need for "new thinking" and a recent visit to Shanghai, that he is ready to open his closed society and moribund economy. "He needs outside assistance, and without American cooperation, assistance is not coming and he knows this," Kim said at Blair House. "This is not to say you should trust him or that I trust him," Kim said earlier at the American Enterprise Institute. "It is just to say that the chairman is in a position where he has to open up and change for survival." Some Bush administration officials have expressed concern about the South Korean government's pursuit of a "peace declaration" that might be signed at a second summit between the North and South Korean leaders, possibly this year in Seoul. But the South Korean president said Wednesday that he would consult with the United States "every step of the way." At Blair House yesterday, Kim added that "there must be some substantive result about [border] tensions before a summit." Both Kim and the United States have stressed the need for North Korea to withdraw some forces from the heavily fortified border. In his Senate testimony yesterday, Powell called the North Korean deployments on the border "probably as great a threat to South Korea and Seoul and regional stability as are weapons of mass destruction." © 2001 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com