US President George W. Bush took his tough talk about North Korea right to the communist state's frontier yesterday, calling Pyongyang evil and urging it to open the border with the South.
Bush tempered the rhetoric with renewed calls for dialogue with the North, particularly on weapons of mass destruction, and praised South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy" toward the North as a "vision of reconciliation over rivalry."
"I will not change my opinion on [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-il until he frees his people and accepts genuine proposals from countries such as South Korea to dialogue," Bush said after talks with the South Korean president in Seoul.
Both leaders said their talks had been frank -- diplomatic code for saying they differed.
Bush described North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" last month. Kim's "Sunshine Policy" favors engaging the North.
Bush made clear the bottom line was a change in Kim Jong-il's ways.
"We're peaceful people. We have no intention of invading North Korea," said Bush, who will arrive in China today.
North Korea, which has more than 1 million troops but receives food aid to stave off malnutrition, has rejected calls for talks, saying Bush is preparing for war.
"I'm troubled by a regime that tolerates starvation," Bush said. "I think the burden of proof is on the North Korean leader to prove that he does care about his people."
In Dorasan, the last South Korean train station before the North-South frontier and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) bisecting the peninsula, Bush focused on this angle.
"That road has the potential to bring the peoples on both sides of this divided land together," Bush said, referring to a new highway that is also a road to nowhere because of the DMZ. "For the good of all the Korean people, the North should finish it."
Bush got his first glimpse of the North during a lunchtime visit to a US-manned post right on the border of the heavily fortified DMZ.
At Observation Post Ouellette, dressed in a green army jacket, Bush peered from a sand-bagged bunker -- and specially erected bulletproof glass -- at the barren North Korean landscape.
"The axes that were used to slaughter two US soldiers are in the peace museum," Bush said. "No wonder I think they're evil."
In August 1976, some 30 North Korean soldiers attacked and killed two US soldiers supervising tree-trimming work in the DMZ. They used the work party's axes to batter the men. The axes are exhibited in what North Korea calls a "peace museum" near the DMZ.
South Korea's capital bristled with more than 20,000 police, many with with riot sticks and shields.
There were small-scale demonstrations on Tuesday and at least three anti-US protests were expected in the city later yesterday. Protesters traded punches with police after trying to deliver a note to the presidential Blue House. At Seoul's Maroni Park, hundreds of protesters marched against the visit and burned homemade flags.
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