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Posted on 01/13/2003 7:07:14 AM PST by TLBSHOW
U.S. Speaks of N.Korea Aid After Nuclear Accord
SEOUL (Reuters) - The top U.S. envoy for Asia said Monday that Washington was willing to consider helping communist North Korea resolve its energy crisis if the current standoff over its nuclear plans could be resolved.
Although Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly was restating a previous offer, he appeared to strike a concessionary tone by at least holding out the prospect of help down the line if Pyongyang meets Washington's unflinching demand that it unconditionally scrap its suspected weapons program.
"We are of course willing to talk to North Korea about their response to the international community," he told a news conference in the South Korean capital, Seoul.
"Once we get beyond nuclear weapons, there may be opportunities with the U.S., with private investors, with other countries to help North Korea in the energy area," he said.
U.S. diplomats and South Korean analysts said Kelly's hint of energy aid to Pyongyang was not a fresh inducement. Such an offer would break with the U.S. refusal to reward North Korean provocations.
But Kelly's restatement of Bush administration offers of humanitarian help for North Korea came after talks with President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, who told the U.S. envoy that Seoul was concerned about hard-line U.S. rhetoric without dialogue.
Some analysts say North Korea's recent upsurge of belligerent rhetoric against the United States may foreshadow its readiness to explore a way out of the crisis.
"The U.S. says it will not make war with North Korea, but North Korea-U.S dialogue has not occurred and that has worried South Koreans," Roh told Kelly.
Kelly's task is complicated by rising anti-U.S. sentiment in the South, where increasing numbers of people are taking a critical look at the half-century-old bilateral relationship and want more of a say in policy on the Korean peninsula.
In Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was unlikely to convene an emergency board meeting on North Korea this week, deferring critical discussions on whether to pass the issue to the United Nations Security Council.
"Diplomacy is being given a chance to work," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said about the timing for the meeting.
Russia said it had agreed with other major powers on outlines of a plan to defuse the crisis and Japan's Kyodo news agency said Moscow was considering sending officials to Pyongyang soon.
SEOUL STRESSES DIALOGUE
Roh's spokesman said he had told Kelly that Seoul was worried about reported U.S. plans for sanctions. The spokesman quoted Kelly as telling Roh that Washington had no sanction or attack plans for the North.
President Kim Dae-jung said U.S.-North Korea talks were key.
"I believe there is no problem that can't be solved through dialogue," he told former Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori, stressing Seoul's opposition to communism and weapons of mass destruction.
Stalinist North Korea's latest brinkmanship aimed at forcing the United States to the negotiating table began last month when Pyongyang threw out U.N. nuclear inspectors.
North Korea, which the Bush administration suspects of developing nuclear arms and has branded part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran, last week pulled out of a global treaty aimed at preventing the spread of atomic weapons and said it was free to resume missile-firing tests.
After heaping abuse on the United States over the weekend, saying its people could disappear in "a sea of fire," North Korea blamed U.S. hostility Monday for its failing communist economy and issued fresh threats against Washington.
"There is no limit to the strike of our army full of the spirit of devotedly defending the leader, the spirit of becoming human bombs and there is no place on Earth to avoid the strike," state media quoted North Korean General Pang Kwan-bok as saying.
Kelly called the hard-line anti-U.S. rhetoric and threats to restart missile tests "a little mystifying" and repeated U.S. statements that Pyongyang's diplomats had covered no new ground in weekend talks in New Mexico with the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson.
"It was a little disappointing because we really hadn't heard anything from the North Koreans...that we hadn't heard in their public pronouncements before," he said.
Richardson urged the Bush administration Sunday to open talks with Pyongyang to defuse the nuclear crisis.
Kelly arrived in Seoul Sunday for his first visit to the region since October, when he visited Pyongyang and said after meetings with senior officials that the North had admitted enriching uranium in a covert nuclear arms program.
The revelations prompted the United States and its allies to halt shipments of fuel oil sent to North Korea under the Agreed Framework, a 1994 deal that froze Pyongyang's nuclear program.
ROH BACKS U.S. ALLIANCE
In exchange for North Korea's mothballing of a reactor suspected of producing plutonium for weapons, Washington and its allies had promised to build two safer reactors in the North and provide heavy oil until the reactors were completed.
Roh explained to Kelly that his incoming government would not accept a nuclear North Korea and wanted to play a leading role in crafting a peaceful solution to the crisis, his aides said.
Roh, who takes office on Feb. 25, underscored his support for the bilateral military alliance with the U.S.
North Korea's moves have triggered worldwide condemnation, calls for an emergency session of the IAEA, which had been monitoring the North's nuclear facilities, and for action by the U.N. Security Council.
"North Korea's nuclear blackmail is nothing new," wrote Dominique Dwor-Frecaut, economist at Barclays Capital in Singapore.
"What is new is the harder line initially taken by the U.S administration, which suspended shipments of oil (and) initially refused to hold direct talks with North Korea," she added.
The North has thousands of loaded artillery pieces aimed at Seoul and half of its army is deployed within 65 km (40 miles) of the demilitarized zone dividing the peninsula, the world's most heavily fortified border.
But Koreans in the South have lived with the threat for 50 years and appear sanguine about the current standoff.
North Korea has said it would address Washington's concerns if the U.S. signed a non-aggression treaty and guaranteed Pyongyang's sovereignty.
You're probably right about that, I doubt the NK military could function for very long without guidance from the Dear Leader and his top tier of leadership. But the NK army probably has orders to level Seoul in the event of any attack, and they don't even have to invade to do that. I don't think Bush wants to roll the dice like that at this point. However, if we did take out Pyongyang I bet Saddam would crap his pants and might just throw in the towel.
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