From rice to nukes, Koreas find little unity
North and South Korean officials meet in high-level talks this week.
from the May 30, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
North Korea is expected to press for shipments of rice, suspended while the South waits for the reactor shutdown. Oblivious to the views of South Korean conservatives that no deal will work, North Korea blames the delay on frustration in recovering $25 million from accounts in a blacklisted bank in Macao.
Few analysts believe the North's demands will stop there. "We should be prepared against a scenario after settlement of that issue," says Mr. Kim. "That is a decoy being used by North Korea. If we pay too much attention, we are playing their game."
Macao lifted the freeze on the account, imposed after the US labeled it a conduit for counterfeiting and barred firms dealing with the bank from business in the US. North Korea, however, demands transfer of the funds through a foreign bank, but none, including the Bank of China, wants to cooperate. Until one relents, North Korea remains an outcast from the international financial system.
Still, US envoy Christopher Hill hopes North Korea can "implement their part of the deal" very soon – and is on his way to Beijing this week to try to persuade China to prod North Korea. While Mr. Hill looks for "signals" of North Korean cooperation, North Korea on Friday again showed off its military potential by firing a short-range Silkworm missile off its east coast. South Korean officials played down the test, calling it a routine "training exercise," but analysts say the timing was not coincidental.
On the same day, South Korea's President Roh Moo Hyun and his wife launched a sophisticated destroyer capable of firing on targets on sea, land, and in the air with help of an advanced Aegis-class radar system. "The North Koreans want to project their will to destroy any vessel," says Kim Tae Woo. "It's just a political action."
The missile test, the first since North Korea tested seven missiles nearly a year ago, shows that North Korea can take "as long as it wants" to shut down its reactor, he says, and then "come back to the table in a majestic manner" while awaiting more concessions.
Kim Sung Han, professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, suggests that the second stage of fulfilling the nuclear agreement "will take a lot of time," especially since "everyone thought the first stage would be a brief but technical issue."
He doubts the train will run regularly until well into the second stage, a process that may take years. "We don't have to hurry about that," he says. "Rather than put this before the nuclear issue, we have to be courteous about pushing for an inter-Korean agenda."
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