By Tong Kim
Since the inter-Korean Summit declaration of Oct., ― in which President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il agreed to pursue a trilateral announcement among the two Koreas and the United States to end the Korean War, albeit they said a peace process would involve "three or four" countries ― there has been a heated discussion with respect to who the "three" would be and how and when such agreement could be reached.
Last week President Roh and his foreign policy advisors publicly discussed their preferred approach: to declare "an end to the war" first before the start of negotiation for a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. By now it is clear that China will be included in the negotiation of a peace system, but it's still not clear whether a war ending declaration will be announced by a tripartite summit without China. The Korean government has publicized this approach based on U.S. President George W. Bush's interest in ending the war with Roh and Kim Jong-il ― presumably upon denuclearization ― that was expressed to President Roh in Hanoi a year ago.
The rationale for Roh's approach follows: First, North Korea will ultimately give up all its nuclear weapons and programs, but it will take a long time to complete the process of verifiable denuclearization. Second, any negotiation of a peace regime will also take a long time; therefore a declaration to end the war should precede the negotiation of a peace regime as much as such a symbolic and political declaration itself would be conducive to the implementation of denuclearization.
While upbeat by the progress of the six party process so far this week with the undertaking to disable the core North Korean nuclear facilities at Yongpyon by the end of this year and expecting a full report of North Korea's nuclear programs this month, the Bush administration is not sure it should concur with South Korea's sequence of steps to a peace agreement.
Washington's preference is clear and simple: a peace agreement or treaty can happen only after the completion of a verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of all North Korea's nuclear weapons and programs. What's clearer is the timeline of normalization, which will never happen before denuclearization.
There are other complications such as the delisting of North Korea as a terrorism sponsoring state, to which Japan's interest is a strong impediment and the reports of a nuclear linkage between Syria and North Korea. North Korea has a history of proliferating weapons of danger ― especially short and long range missiles. Last week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said North Korea has sold Iran two Taepodong missiles with a range of 2,500 km.
The delisting of North Korea as a terrorism sponsor is an issue that should be resolved by the United States according to its law and procedures, and there is nothing much President Roh can do. Along with Japan's opposition to delisting, the reemergence of North Korea's proliferation following the intelligence leaks on the suspected Syrian nuclear facility is not a welcome development for the Bush administration that is eager to seal the nuclear deal with North Korea.
From President Roh's perspective, a declaration to end the Korean War is an attractive possibility that might be realized before leaving office. And this is something he raised to Kim Jong-il, who welcomed it. Last week the nuclear envoys from both Koreas agreed in Beijing to support the implementation of their leaders' commitment to peace talks.
Although Roh is defensive of the economic promises that he made in Pyongyang, the economic front seems to be in full swing with a scheduled prime ministers meeting this month. On the other hand the issue of promoting peace by moving toward a peace regime is something less controversial in South Korea's domestic politics.
Against the back drop of these developments, South Korea's foreign minister Song Min-soon will meet with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington to discuss the issues of denuclearization and a process that would create a peace mechanism in Korea. A foreign minister carries out his leader's policy.
It is doubtful that their meeting would dramatically change the pronounced U.S. position on the sequence and the conditions for a peace agreement. They will probably produce another vague agreement in principle that says both governments want to pursue the successful end to North Korea's nuclear dismantlement and to coordinate their efforts to begin negotiating a peace agreement at an appropriate time contingent upon the progress of the six party process. Senior U.S. officials, including the American ambassador to Seoul, have said there would no war ending declaration this year.
It seems highly unlikely that Bush will agree to join Roh and Kim Jong-il in a trilateral summit to declare an end to the Korean War anytime soon. Apparently mindful of this prospect, South Korean officials are considering a few alternatives, which include making a declaration at the ministerial level or at the level of heads of delegations at the six-party talks before moving to the negotiation of a peace regime which the September 19 Joint Statement adopted as an agenda.
What is obvious is Roh's intense interest in carrying out his political agenda to show some progress on the issues of declaration that he raised to Kim Jong-il. Last week Roh told a Japanese newspaper that the origin of the North Korean nuclear problem was a mutual ``misunderstanding" from a combination of the North's perceived U.S. threat and vise versa.
The problem with President Roh's perspective is that he sounds like a disinterested party in this critical issue of security and peace for South Korea. What's your take?
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 a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University SAIS.