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Roh panned on visit to N Korea

The main opposition party warned South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday against striking any summit deals with North Korea that would burden the next government.

The conservative Grand National Party (GNP), tipped to take power in December's presidential election, accused the presidential entourage of "being gripped with naive and nationalistic optimism."

"They must know that an emotional approach to the North would bring on disasters," spokeswoman Na Kyung-won said.

"They must not indulge themselves making promises that would increase burdens on the people," Na said.

Newspapers have said multi-billion dollar economic cooperation projects may be on the table but there has been no official confirmation.

The GNP also attacked Roh for planning to view the Arirang "propaganda" festival tomorrow on the sidelines of his summit with the communist state's leader Kim Jong-il.

"The people are watching with anxiety what may happen during the three nights and two days of President Roh's stay in Pyongyang," the spokeswoman said.

Roh will travel by road for the summit from today to Thursday. It will be the second visit in the six decades or so since the peninsula was divided into the North and the South.

The spokesperson noted that Roh planned to walk across the sensitive inter-Korean border and watch the Arirang festival "despite opposition from the public."

Roh will be the first South Korean leader to walk across the world's last Cold War frontier, in what Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung has said would be a "impressive and historic moment."

Arirang features some 100,000 performers including soldiers, children and students who stage a mixture of gymnastics and massive flip card displays.

The GNP and other conservatives say Roh should not attend an event which praises communist ideology and glorifies Kim Jong-il and his late father Kim Il-sung, who ordered the 1950 invasion of the South.

Defectors say thousands of children undergo months of harsh training for the show.

But Lee says Arirang's content has been altered for Roh's benefit, to exclude references to missile and nuclear tests.

Scenes of gun-toting soldiers were being replaced with traditional taekwondo martial arts figures.

An August opinion poll showed that more than two-thirds of South Koreans support the summit, which Roh says will focus on fostering peace and reconciliation that began with the first summit in 2000.

But some 70 conservatives rallied near the presidential Blue House, saying it would only give the regime in Pyongyang a new lease of life.

They attempted to set North Korean flags ablaze but police with extinguishers doused the flames.
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