GNP Demands Summit Be Held After Election

This picture released from Korean Central News Agency shows North Korea’s ministry officials removing mud covering a road by the Daedong River in Pyongyang, Saturday, after torrential rains fell on the region. Almost 300 people are dead or missing in the floods while some 300,000 people are homeless and 11 percent of the grain harvest, equivalent to 450,000 tons, was lost. / AFP-Yonhap

By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter

The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) demanded Sunday that a second inter-Korean summit be delayed until after December's presidential election to minimize the summit's political impact on the Dec. 19 poll.

The demand came a day after the Aug. 28-30 summit was postponed to Oct. 2-4 because of severe flooding believed to have left 300,000 people homeless in North Korea.

The rescheduling of the inter-Korean summit is likely to affect the schedule of President Roh Moo-hyun's summit with U.S. President George W. Bush tentatively slated for between late September and early October, sources at Roh's office said.

North Korea Saturday asked for the second summit with South Korea to be put off until early October because of the floods, Cheong Wa Dae said. Roh had planned to visit the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, via a reconnected cross-border road, for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

The opposition party, who has been criticizing the timing of the summit, raised suspicion that the postponement might be a political maneuver to tip the election in favor of the liberal-minded pro-government camp.

``We're increasingly suspicious that the postponement could be a political gambit designed to affect the ongoing presidential race in which GNP presidential hopefuls are enjoying strong public support,'' party spokeswoman Na Kyung-won told reporters.
``In order to remove any political misunderstanding, the inter-Korean summit has to be postponed until after the presidential election,'' she said.

Presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon dismissed speculation that the postponement has a political motive.

Cheon said North Korea said in a telephone message Saturday it was now faced with the ``urgent task'' of recovering from flood damage and stabilizing the people's livelihood.

``The North said its attitude toward the inter-Korean summit and related agreements such as summit procedures and protocol would remain unchanged,'' the spokesman said.

The presidential office denied reports that Pyongyang delayed the summit to protest the South Korea-U.S. joint exercise from Aug. 20 to 31.

North Korea has made a rare appeal for international aid to tackle the floods which have killed hundreds of people, as well as devastated farmland and the infrastructure in the poverty-stricken North.

Reports said floods and landslides from the weeklong heavy downpour last week have left at least 200 people dead or missing, and driven as many as 300,000 from their homes.

According to United Nations disaster assessment teams, 58,000 homes were damaged in the flooding, 50 percent of the country's health clinics were destroyed, and as much as 70 percent of arable land was submerged. More than 800 public buildings, 540 bridges, 70 sections of railway and 500 high-voltage power towers were also destroyed, they said.

A bad harvest would worsen the existing food problem in the North already short of one million tons of food each year, or 20 percent of what is needed to feed the 23 million population.

The U.N. said Sunday at least 12 nations, including the United States, Japan, Russia and Italy, have offered to provide relief aid to North Korea. The U.S. government has announced that it will give humanitarian relief worth $100,000 to North Korean victims though non-governmental organizations.

The World Food Program (WFP) said it is to send 4,000 tons of food aid.
South Korea's Ministry of Unification announced Friday that it will initially send a relief package worth $7.5 million in supplies this week.

``The two Koreas will have more time to prepare for the summit to be held successfully,'' Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said Sunday. ``Nothing has been changed regarding the summit, except for the date.''

Seoul officials, in the meantime, expressed hope that the October summit meeting will help create synergy for ridding the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons, given that a fresh round of six-party talks aimed at dismantling the North's nuclear weapons program is to take place ahead of the Korean summit.

In a six-way working group meeting in China from Aug. 16-17, North Korea made a renewed pledge that it will live up to the Feb. 13 nuclear pact aimed at scrapping the North's nuclear weapons programs in return for political and economic aid.

A working group on establishing a peace mechanism in Northeast Asia is to be held next week, and nuclear envoys from the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia are to hold a new round of disarmament talks next month to discuss the implementation of second-phased denuclearization steps under the February deal.

A working group meeting for normalizing ties between Washington and Pyongyang is also scheduled ahead of the Roh-Kim meeting.

``If new progress is made in the upcoming six-party talks ahead of the inter-Korean summit, the leaders of the two Koreas will likely move the nuclear issue to the top of their agenda, and that is expected to put a positive spin on the six-party talks,'' an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said, requesting not to be named.

gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr