The Rising East
N. Korea gets tougher
with U.S. demandsWhile American eyes have been riveted on President Bush's preparations for a possible war with Iraq, his administration has been seeking, without much success, to engage an adversary at the other end of what he has called "the axis of evil," North Korea.
In two ventures last week, one high-level in Pyongyang and the other mid-level in Bangkok, the North Koreans roundly rebuffed the United States. In the first, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly sought to open a strategic dialogue with North Korean leaders. In the second, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Jerry Jennings sought to improve the recovery of the remains of U.S. soldiers from North Korea, and to gain access to several American deserters there.
Right after Kelly left Pyongyang, the North Korean official news agency blasted him for his "high-handed and arrogant attitude." The Korean Central News Agency said the U.S. attempt to raise "issues of concern" was "a product of its hostile policy towards the DPRK," or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea.
KCNA asserted that Kelly "made it clear that the Bush administration is pursuing not a policy of dialogue, but a hard-line policy of hostility to bring the DPRK to its knees by force." That policy, KCNA concluded, "compels the DPRK to take all necessary countermeasures."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, right, shook hands with South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong on Oct. 5 at Choi's residence in Seoul, after a three-day visit to that country.
The North Korean response to the effort by Jennings to lay out a way to improve the recovery of remains was less belligerent but no more forthcoming. American officials sought, unsuccessfully, to gain access to U.S. deserters by drawing a parallel to the recent North Korea admission that it had kidnapped 13 Japanese. One Japanese woman is reported to have married an American deserter.
Kelly, the former president of the Pacific Forum, a Honolulu think tank declined to meet with the press in either Seoul or Tokyo, where he stopped to brief South Korean and Japanese officials on his visit to Pyongyang, evidently for two reasons:
>> The Bush administration doesn't want to take on more than one adversary at a time, at least not in public, and wants to avoid distracting the voters and taxpayers as the president tries to persuade them that an attack on Iraq would be in the national interest.No matter, as it is not hard to imagine the agenda on both sides, each having discussed its position in public for many months. The United States wants North Korea to stop selling missiles to nations hostile to the United States, to stop producing weapons of mass destruction and to pull back large parts of its army from the 4,000-yard-wide demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea.>> Kelly had no good news. Most often, diplomats have something to say after high-level meetings, even if it is just platitudes. When the news is bad or there is no progress, diplomats prefer to say little. In a statement, Kelly said only that the talks were "useful."
The North Koreans want the United States to withdraw the 37,000 American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines from the peninsula, to remove their nation from Bush's "axis of evil," to reimburse them for missiles they do not sell, and to establish diplomatic relations that would include economic aid and technical assistance.
To reinforce their position, the official newspaper Rodong Sinmun reminded Kelly during his visit that the United States and North Korea are still technically at war, the Korean War of 1950-53 having ended in a truce, not a peace agreement. "The DPRK will further strengthen the revolutionary armed forces to prevent any formidable enemies from recklessly attacking it," the paper said.
In the Bangkok meeting, one in a series not directly connected with the Kelly venture, the United States urged the North Koreans to set up a mechanism to speed the recovery of remains, to resolve reports that American defectors were living in North Korea and to permit American officials to talk to the deserter married to the kidnapped Japanese woman. The North Koreans were noncommittal.
In sum, some observers of North Korea have been optimistic in recent weeks that Pyongyang was ready to shuck its habit of diplomacy by diatribe. That didn't happen, but these events may have been the first step in a journey of a thousand miles.
Richard Halloran is a former correspondent
for The New York Times in Asia and a former editorial
director of the Star-Bulletin. His column appears Sundays.
He can be reached by e-mail at rhalloran@starbulletin.com
