The Koreas Are Talking
In the two Korean capitals, South Korean negotiators pushed their Northern counterparts Thursday to agree to specific steps to peacefully settle a nuclear standoff, while the United States stepped up pressure to put the dispute before the U.N. Security Council.
Meanwhile, North Korea continued its harsh condemnation of the United States on Thursday, accusing Washington of planning a pre-emptive attack on the North.
"There is the real danger of a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula due to the U.S. vicious, hostile policy toward (North Korea)," the North's official KCNA news agency said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested Wednesday that third-party diplomatic contacts seemed to be working to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula.
But South Korean President Kim Dae-jung called for direct talks between the United States and North Korea in a meeting Thursday with a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Stephen W. Bosworth.
"The United States must talk with North Korea. I believe there is no other way but dialogue," Kim was quoted as saying by his chief spokeswoman, Park Sun-sook.
During Cabinet-level talks in Seoul, negotiators for the two Koreas worked through the day on the wording of a proposed joint statement that they said could be issued later in the day, although the haggling continued into the evening. The South Koreans want the North to say what it will do to lower tensions over its suspected nuclear weapons development.
"We underlined our people's and international society's concerns about North Korea's nuclear issue and continued to urge them to make a progressive position on it," said South Korean delegate Rhee Bong-jo.
In the talks, which began Wednesday, the North has assured the South that it does not intend to build nuclear weapons and said the dispute could be resolved through dialogue. The South is apparently pushing for a more specific statement from the North.
During a dinner break, top negotiators said they had made progress in resolving the security concerns and increasing cooperation between the North and South, which have been separated since 1945.
"In the remaining session, both delegations — as they have until now — will try their best," said the South Korean delegation leader, Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun. "Most of all, we must completely remove the security concerns which have been formed on the Korean Peninsula recently."
North Korean delegation leader Kim Ryong Song said it was vital to "prevent the danger of war on the Korean Peninsula and preserve the safety of the nation."
At one point during Thursday's sessions, three South Koreans who said they were relatives of people allegedly kidnapped by North Korean agents decades ago came into the hotel where the talks were taking place and demanded to see the negotiators, but were turned away.
The negotiations coincided with an effort by the United States to win agreement for U.N. Security Council consideration of the North's nuclear aims.
U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton arrived in Tokyo on Thursday to meet with Japanese officials. Bolton said in Seoul on Wednesday that it was only "a matter of time" before the Security Council addresses the issue.
Bolton said in Seoul that Britain, France and most likely Russia would back a move to put the dispute to the United Nations, and that China had not voiced any opposition.
But Western diplomats on the Security Council said the issue probably will not come up anytime soon since it still is being debated by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency in Vienna, Austria.
In North Korea's capital of Pyongyang, a separate set of North and South Korean negotiators gathered on Thursday for talks on completing railroad and road links between the two countries started as part of a reconciliation process stemming from a North-South summit in June 2000.
South Korean delegate Cho Myung-gyun urged North Korea to resolve technical disputes with the U.S.-led U.N. Command — which oversees the Demilitarized Zone between the two countries — as soon as possible to open a railway line and a road link through the western sector of the border by the end of February.
The transportation links had been scheduled to be completed by the end of last year, but have been stalled.
Tensions escalated in October when the United States said North Korea admitted having a nuclear program in violation of a 1994 agreement. The United States and its allies suspended oil shipments to the North, and Pyongyang responded by expelling U.N. inspectors and preparing to restart a nuclear reactor.
North Korea has asked the United States to sign a non-aggression pact. It blames the tension on the Bush administration, saying North Korea has reason to fear because the White House suspended contacts with Pyongyang when it entered office, named North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" and then articulated a new policy of preemptive strikes.