New push to resolve Korea crisis

"To get the kind of coordination needed to deal with North Korean nukes, the alliance needs to be on sturdy ground," says Victor Cha of Georgetown University. "This is the first meeting after a year of relations between the US and South Korea that seemed to be a difficult period. I think we are past that now."

Diplomacy between South Korea and the US is being closely orchestrated to close any perceived gaps and to emphasize a desire on both sides to resolve the Korean nuclear question peacefully. From the time Roh was elected, say interlocutors who know both men, there was an expectation of good relations between Roh and Bush, both of whom are "folksy," and who are said to rely on "gut" instincts and to bank heavily on personal relations in their decisionmaking.

This chemistry is likely to be important - since there are some large differences between the two sides. The Bush team wants to discuss various sanctions and to keep military options on the table (although the long held idea of "surgical strikes" against, say, the Yongbyon nuclear facility are now said to be in disfavor even by hawks).

Roh, a strong believer of the "Sunshine Policy" of his predecessor Kim Dae Jung, is said to believe that military options should not be raised. The South Korean position on sanctions is unclear. When asked two weeks ago in Seoul about the possibility of sanctions against North Korea if diplomacy failed, South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan declined to comment, since the question involved "conditionalities" that are still "theoretical."

Dr. Cha believes, however, that elements of the cardinal South policy of engagement toward the North have been changing since the April 23 US-China-North Korean talks in Beijing. During the "Sunshine Policy" period between Seoul and Pyong-yang, which brought Kim Dae Jung a Nobel Prize in 2000, South Korea assumed that Kim's nuclear program was only a "bargaining chip" to be given up one day in exchange for economic development.

"There is a growing realization in the South, since Beijing [talks], that North Korea may want to be a nuclear state, and that it may not be possible to turn them away from this aim," says Cha. "In the South, also, there is an awareness that the grim economic problems right now are not just due to SARS or US policy, but are the result of the environment created by North Korea's demand for nuclear weapons."

Sources in Seoul say that "while there is a tactical political shift toward the US alliance, there is not yet a similar social shift in people's thinking," as one analyst put it. "We are still questioning the US."

Roh started his US visit in New York, where he told reporters that he hopes the US Defense Department will rethink plans to redeploy US troops to new bases below the Han River - at least until the nuclear question is resolved. US forces have guarded the North Korean DMZ for more than 50 years, and have long been called a "trip wire" against a North Korean infantry attack. Roh had been on record some years ago as supporting a withdrawal of US forces entirely from Korea. But since being elected Dec. 20, the new president has consistently moved away from a "leftist" or "progressive" position, and toward a more status quo position - partly, experts say, because the US troop presence seems to be an assurance to markets and overseas investments.

"The fruits of this meeeting won't be seen for weeks," argues Bates Gill of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "At that time, we may see a united front [involving] Beijing, Japan, and South Korea to show to the North."

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