President-elect Roh Moo-hyun called yesterday for a revamp of South Korea's relationship with the US, but ruled out radical change and pledged to work with Washington to curtail North Korea's nuclear arms program.
Roh, a 56-year-old human rights lawyer who won Thursday's presidential election after campaigning for greater autonomy from Washington, said he would propose amendments to a pact governing US forces stationed in the South since the Korean War.
Washington, which favors a tougher line on the unpredictable and possibly nuclear-armed North than Roh and outgoing President Kim Dae-jung, put a brave face on the result, the latest indication that its popularity around the world may be waning.
"The traditional friendship and alliance between ROK (Republic of Korea) and the United States must mature and advance in the 21st century," Roh said.
Roh, who vowed during the campaign never to "kow-tow" to Washington or travel there merely for a White House photo opportunity, softened his tone in victory.
"I will not make major changes to Kim Dae-jung's policies on US relations, North Korea and foreign affairs," he said.
US Ambassador Thomas Hubbard paid a courtesy call on the election winner, whose spokesman quoted Roh as saying "future working relations with the new South Korean government will be not much different from what the relationship is now."
Roh's victory was a vote of confidence in Kim's "sunshine policy" of engagement with a neighbor US President George W. Bush has dubbed a member of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran.
Roh, a member of Kim's Millennium Democratic Party, pledged to continue sending cash aid to the North while working with Washington to persuade the reclusive communist state to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
"In order to resolve peacefully the problem related to North Korea's nuclear development, we will take initiatives through close cooperation between the Republic of Korea and the US government," he said.
Roh, who takes over from Kim in February, beat his older conservative rival, Lee Hoi-chang, by 2.3 percentage points.
He tapped into the Internet generation to defeat Lee, whose more hawkish views on North Korea are closer to those of the US.
The pact with Washington governs the status of the 37,000 US troops in South Korea, a focal point of protests that followed a June traffic accident in which a US military vehicle on an exercise crushed two schoolgirls to death.
Roh rode a tide of unprecedented anti-American sentiment, which brought tens of thousands into the streets after a US court martial acquitted two soldiers involved in the accident.
The US Army said two of its soldiers were spat upon and jeered at Seoul train station on election day by a crowd that included a local television reporter and crew.
Roh galvanized what had been an apolitical younger generation to defeat Lee, 67, who lost the last election in 1997 to Kim.
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