By Tong Kim

Most people do not talk about North Korea nowadays. The South Korean public is anxiously waiting for a final selection of the next administration's cabinet members, including its prime minister, whose numbers will vary depending on the National Assembly's approval of President-elect Lee Myung-bak's sweeping proposal for government reorganization.

In the United States, no candidate in the Republican or Democratic presidential primaries has spoken about the North Korean issue. The war in Iraq, however, is an important election issue.

Beyond that, the candidates are more focused on the economy, health plans, education, social security, immigration and other domestic issues. North Korea seems to have been relegated to the backburner again.

North Korea has been uncharacteristically quiet on Lee's election, since it had signaled on the eve of the election its preference to cooperate with a new South Korean government on economic and other inter-Korean issues.

Pyongyang is closely watching the changing strategic environment on the peninsula with an emerging conservative government in Seoul.

The North Koreans are concerned that the status quo might become untenable to their disadvantage, as the South becomes even stronger economically and militarily through the strengthening of its alliance with the United States.

The North Koreans have noted some bad news already. Lee Myung-bak said he would be tougher in dealing with them than his two predecessors, Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung. He will also speak out on human rights and other issues without pandering to the North Korean leadership.

Lee would not seriously engage the North until after complete resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. To this end, he said he would closely cooperate with the United States, a message that the two traditional allies will have the same voice.

The President-elect sent his envoys to Washington, Tokyo, Beijing and Moscow _ but not to Pyongyang _ to explain what his policies would be toward them. The wisdom of the pre-inaugural envoy diplomacy would be questionable, unless its objective was to expedite the process of denuclearization, as these countries are all participants in the six party talks

Abolition of the Ministry of Unification is also discouraging news to the North Koreans, who might interpret it as the downgrading of inter-Korean dialogue or the new government's lack of interest in ending the national division, although unification is becoming an unrealistic symbolic goal for both Koreas. Symbolism is important.

Lee's transition team is already talking about the revival of trilateral cooperation among the ROK, the U.S. and Japan to cope with the North Korean issue.

Lee has implied he would not ask Japan to apologize for its historical distortions in return for voluntarily improving strained bilateral relations. Japan is a country North Korea has great trouble with.

The good news for the North is the President-elect is committed to providing humanitarian aid and keeping the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and the Mount Geumgang tourist project going.

But his massive economic package _ ambitiously designed to raise the North's per capita income to $3,000 dollars _ would be available only after complete denuclearization. This sounds to Pyongyang like the familiar, confrontational hard-line policy of the first term Bush administration that yielded only a second nuclear crisis.

It is not yet certain whether North Korea is willing to fulfill its commitment to denuclearization before President Bush leaves office in November. The North is believed to have a stockpile of 8 to 10 nuclear weapons, which along with its formidable conventional forces, are a serious threat to the South.

By a series of multilateral agreements, which were hard won only through bilateral negotiations between the DPRK and the United States, Pyongyang has shut down and disabled the 5-megawatt reactor. But there is a delay in disabling the reprocessing plant at Yongbyon, meaning they can obtain additional plutonium ― probably enough for one or two more bombs from spent fuel rods (now in the process of de-fueling) if they keep the plant.

What's ostensibly at issue is North Korea's failure to meet the December 31 deadline to produce a complete and accurate disclosure of all nuclear activities, including the correct amount of plutonium and the status of suspected uranium enrichment programs. The United States had promised to take the DPRK off its list of state sponsors of terrorism had it co-operated.

Only last week, it was revealed that when Christopher Hill, U.S. nuclear negotiator, was in Pyongyang in November, the North Koreans showed him a declaration draft that reported only 30 kilograms of separated plutonium and denied uranium enrichment programs (for which the North smuggled in large amounts of materials). To the United States, this was neither a credible nor plausible amount.

On January 5, Pyongyang claimed through its official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) that it ``notified the U.S. of the contents of our declaration" of nuclear programs in November, and ``we even showed how imported aluminum pipes were used by some military facility in response to U.S. suspicion."

The DPRK has complained that the U.S. was not implementing its promise to remove the North from its list of terrorism sponsors.

This year is an election year for the United States and Pyongyang may have decided not to complete denuclearization until after a new administration takes charge in Washington.

According to the agreed arrangement, the North will continue to receive heavy oil even if it fails to provide a complete nuclear declaration.

It is important for the next South Korean government to develop a creative policy toward the North that may help maintain stability without ratcheting up tension that could affect economic performance in the South.

History shows pressure does not work on the North Koreans, who react violently when pushed too far, or when they are ignored or when they determine the situation is becoming worse for them, especially in their relations with the South.

Tong Kim is former senior interpreter at the U.S. State Department and now a research professor with Ilmin Institute of International Relations at Korea University and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He can be reached at tong.kim8@yahoo.com.