2 Koreas Reach Accord but Skirt Nuclear Program Summit Ends With Call for Peace Treaty; South Rues A

Oct 05, 12:59 PM

Current Headlines: By Choe Sang-Hun

Leaders of the two Koreas on Thursday signed a wide-ranging agreement that called for a peace treaty to replace the Korean War cease-fire signed in 1953, as well as more economic projects to reduce tension across the world's last Cold War frontier. However, the agreement contained only a passing reference to North Korea's nuclear arms program, saying that the North and South would work for the implementation of previous accords from six-nation talks on a "solution of the nuclear issue."

The absence of a personal commitment by the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, at the three-day summit meeting in Pyongyang to give up his nuclear arsenal was seized on by the political opposition in South Korea as a shortcoming in the first major reconciliation pact between the divided Koreas in seven years.

The day before, the six nations that have been engaged in separate talks in Beijing to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons announced a deal under which the North promised to disable its main nuclear facility and completely disclose its nuclear programs by the end of the year. But by Thursday, some critics in South Korea were warning of a lack of specifics.

Kim was unsmiling when he signed the eight-point declaration with Roh. At Roh's suggestion, the two leaders joined hands after signing the accord and raised them for the cameras, but Kim looked dour.

Nonetheless, the South Korean government billed the declaration as a new milestone in improving ties between the two countries, which remain technically at war. Five decades after the guns of the Korean War fell silent, the inter-Korean border remains tense, with nearly two million troops standing ready on both sides to restart the conflict that ended only in a temporary truce.

"North and South Korea shared the view they must end the current armistice and build a permanent peace regime," the two leaders said in their statement. Mistrust between the two sides has run so deep that this was only the second time their leaders had met since the war. The first was the groundbreaking meeting between Kim and Roh's predecessor, Kim Dae Jung, in 2000.

Roh and Kim Jong Il said they would work together to convene a meeting with the United States and China, both parties to the Korean War and to the armistice, to negotiate a Korean peace treaty.

"This marks a significant change in North Korean attitude," said Baek Seung Joo, an analyst at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. "Until now, North Korea has been reluctant to discuss a peace regime with South Korea because the South fought in the war but never signed the truce."

President George W. Bush said last month that he was willing to formally end the Korean War, but he insisted it could happen only after North Korea had completed nuclear disarmament. Bush made that comment during talks with Roh in Sydney, when the South Korean president pressed him to clarify the U.S. position ahead of the summit meeting in Pyongyang.

The inter-Korean pact came a day after the announcement of a new six-nation agreement under which North Korea pledged to disable its nuclear facility at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, and provide a "complete and correct declaration" of all its nuclear programs.

It also said it would allow a team of U.S. experts to lead the disablement of the Yongbyon facility, the North's sole operating reactor and its only known means of producing weapons-grade plutonium. Bush hailed the agreement as a key for "peace and prosperity" in northeast Asia.

But like the inter-Korean agreement, the six-nation statement lacked some crucial details.

"However closely you read the statement, you don't find any reference to 'nuclear weapons.' It doesn't say specifically what to do with the nuclear devices and plutonium the North has stored, and with its suspected uranium enrichment program," said Chung Chin Wee, a political scientist at Seoul's Yonsei University.

"Things are not going well for Bush in Iran and Iraq, and he is eager for a deal with North Korea."

In the nuclear agreement, Washington pledged to "begin the process" of removing North Korea's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism - a key North Korean condition for disabling the Yongbyon reactor - but it did not set a date. The deal also did not clarify what "disablement" meant: a simple removal of some components, or measures that would make it more difficult for North Korea to restart the facility?

U.S. officials say the latest six-nation agreement is just one stage of what will eventually be a long, complicated process leading toward the North's complete denuclearization.

But the lack of detail leaves North Korean intentions and the future of six-nation talks shrouded in uncertainties that South Koreans had hoped their president would help resolve when he met with Kim.

"President Roh should have pushed harder on the nuclear issue, pressing Kim Jong Il to commit himself clearly to dismantling his nuclear weapons," Baek said.

"The summit meeting reconfirmed North Korea's insistence that the nuclear issue is none of South Korea's business, that it's a matter between North Korea and the United States."

U.S. officials have said that generous economic assistance from South Korea, when not linked to progress in the six-nation talks, will only embolden Kim Jong Il to stall on nuclear disarmament.

But South Korean policy-makers insist that efforts to improve relations between the two Koreas and the parallel attempt to end the North's nuclear weapons programs can complement each other.

In their Thursday agreement, the two Koreas also pledged to bolster economic ties by opening regular cargo rail service across the border and creating a joint fishing zone on their disputed western sea frontier. They also will establish a special "peace and cooperation" district in the North Korean port city of Haeju, a major naval base near the border, and set up a regular maritime transport service with the South.

The western sea border near Haeju has been the scene of bloody naval skirmishes between the two Koreas in recent years. Persuading the two navies to pull back and turn the area into an economic zone will drastically ease tension on the divided peninsula, said Jeong Hyung Gon, a research fellow at the government-funded Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.

But Kim and Roh left specifics on how to implement these deals to future talks. They scheduled meetings between their defense and prime ministers in the coming months to build on progress from this week's summit meeting.

South Korea's main opposition Grand National Party, which is regarded as the favorite to win the presidential election in December, called the declaration "insufficient."

"It's very regrettable that the South and North Korean leaders didn't take any substantial measures or show their firm commitment to nuclear dismantlement and peace on the Korean Peninsula, which have been the most important issue of our nationals and the world," the party said in a statement. "We should refrain from pushing for the declaration ending the war hastily without nuclear dismantlement."

Roh's term ends in February and, by law, he cannot run for re- election. His conservative critics in South Korea have charged that his trip to Pyongyang less than three months before the election was a political gambit to swing votes to liberal presidential candidates who favor engagement with the North and to carry on Roh's legacy.

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

(c) 2007 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.