The Agreed Framework and KEDO are two of the functioning policies that help to engage North Korea through a concerted multilateral mechanism. The historic inter-Korea Summit in June further eased tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Neighboring and other major countries, supporting and encouraging the rapprochement process, are also reassessing their relations with one of the last Stalinist states in the world. As the right person at the right time and the right place, it is therefore perfectly natural for President Kim to seize the occasion of ASEM summit to urge other ASEM countries to improve their relations with Pyongyang and to ensure their support for his proposed "Seoul Declaration on Peace on the Korean Peninsula," expected to be the highlight of the Summit. An important point to observe is the extent to which relations between North Korea and neighboring and major countries would improve or enhance, which depends upon where these countries' interests lie therein, and is inevitably shadowed by the uncertainty of the Pyongyang regime.
According to one updated research on EU-North Korea relations from Professor Reinhard Drifte, Chair of Japanese Studies of Department of Politics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK, the EU's financial support to KEDO from March 1995 through July 1999 has been US$52 million, compared with Japan's US$35.7 million (includes a refundable collateral of US$19 million), South Korea's US$62.2 million, and the US with US$152.5 million. One of the direct consequences of the EU's involvement in KEDO is that it has raised the EU's awareness of and engagement on the Korean Peninsula, and prompted greater attempts to consolidate its policy towards the Korean Peninsula. For example, the EU opened a political dialogue with North Korea in December 1998, and the European Parliament also sent a 'fact-finding' delegation to North Korea from 6 to 13 December 1998. Supporting and welcoming President Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy" and the inter-Korea rapprochement, the EU now takes a positive attitude towards upgrading relations with North Korea. As Professor Drifte predicts, "Things are moving rather fast on this front, and Germany is more or less able to take action (normalization) any day. There has just been a deputy foreign minister in Pyongyang. The Commission/EU is also trying to move, and there may be a decision before the end of the year on having a North Korea mission or something like this and a North Korean liaison office in Brussels."
Nonetheless, Professor Drifte also noted reservations among some member states about there not yet being concrete results on nuclear arms control and missiles in North Korea. When making the announcement of British government decision to forge ties with North Korea in Seoul on Thursday, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said that, "this opening of diplomatic relations is not any way an approval of the conduct of the regime," and denied that it implied acceptance of the regime or its human rights record. Among the priorities that the EU would like to address in ASEM III, an "enhanced exchange of views" on regional and global security issues will focus on arms control, disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation. Professor Drifte maintains that the reported export and delivery of missile technology and parts from North Korea to Iran and Syria, from where the EU receives a substantial amount of its oil, remain a direct security concern for the EU.
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