Apart from collateral damage on the battle fields, the new war on terrorism is also causing considerable collateral damage in the diplomatic arena.
Citing "an unpredictable atmosphere of tension," the North Korean government has abruptly cancelled a meeting of members of divided families slated to take place at the beginning of this week. It would have been the fourth encounter of this kind, bringing together for a few precious hours North and South Koreans, forcefully separated for more than half a century.
The suspension of the family visits is a major setback for the inter-Korean peace process. For a majority of South Koreans, these meetings are the singular most important achievement of President Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine policy." By stonewalling in this highly emotional issue, the regime in Pyongyang is pouring water on the mills of the mounting number of sceptics in the South, who argue that it does not make sense to engage the communist regime.
North Korea's sudden backing-off comes just a few weeks after ministerial talks in Seoul, at which both sides had pledged to work for a new beginning in inter-Korean relations after a six-month hiatus. The South Korean government had hoped it could blow new life into the slow-moving process of rapprochement, in spite of the evolving international crisis after Sept. 11. "It is more important than ever to show that the two Koreas are going on with dialogue, this global situation notwithstanding," said Rhee Bong-jo, Seoul's assistant unification minister.
Seoul is running out of patience
But with Pyongyang showing once more that an agreement it has made is hardly worth the paper it was written on, Seoul's patience seems to be wearing thin. While Kim insists there is no viable alternative to his policy of engaging the North, members of his immediate entourage concede in private discussions that time has come to let the North Koreans feel they cannot always have their way. "At the moment everything's dead," an American expert was quoted as saying a few days ago. "I don't think South and North Korean talks are going to get anywhere."
In spite of this gloomy picture, inter-Korean relations will be a focal point in the summit talks between Kim and other political leaders on the sideline of the APEC summit in Shanghai today and tomorrow. According to reports in the South Korean media, Kim will hold separate talks with US President George W. Bush, Chinese President Jiang Zemin (
Whenever South Korean and American politicians meet to discuss peninsular affairs, developments in the North, and more precisely US-North Korean relations, take center stage. With all eyes turned towards Afghanistan and Central Asia, it is not clear which impact the ongoing military campaign will have on US-North Korean relations.
It is well known that regarding the handling of North Korea two schools of thought compete in the US administration. It is not yet apparent, though, whether eventually the hardliners will prevail, who reject any compromise with the North Korean "rogues" or the pragmatists, who deem it high time to burry the hatchet and aspire a lasting settlement of outstanding issues with Pyongyang. There has been speculation, that with the US military campaign in full swing, Washington is not in the state of mind to pay attention to what is happening in Northeast Asia.
The State Department has dismissed this notion: "after the terrorist attacks on the United States, some have speculated that there might be negative implications for dialogue with North Korea, I do not agree," said Evans Revere, deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Seoul, adding that the new situation actually provided an opportunity for Pyongyang "to cooperate with the international community in its campaign against terror."
`Terrorism sponsor'
According to one report, US and North Korean diplomats have all along held unofficial contacts in New York aimed at resuming talks on an official level. It is not known to what extent the terrorism issue has played a role in these encounters. On the other hand, we know that the US has for many years been concerned about Pyongyang's support for international terrorism, thus including North Korea on its list of terrorism-sponsoring nations together with Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria. It has been one of the major aims of North Korean diplomacy vis-a-vis the US to get off this incriminating catalogue; therefore special attention was paid as to how Pyongyang reacted to the terrorist attacks against America. On more than one occasion, the North Koreans declared they reject "all forms of terrorism and any support of it." On the other hand, the communist regime condemned in clear terms the US military attacks against Afghanistan, warning that the "vicious circle of terrorism and retaliation may plunge the world into the holocaust of war."
From all we know, the North Koreans have not been implicated in a terrorist attack since the bombing of a Korean Air plane in 1987, that killed all 115 on board. The key issue hindering North Korea's removal from the list of terrorism sponsors remains Pyongyang's refusal to hand over a handful of Red Army-terrorists, who hijacked a Japanese airplane to North Korea in 1970. Considering the new sensitivities after Sept. 11, it is doubtful that the US government will turn a blind eye on this unresolved chapter of North Korean international (mis)behavior.
While Kim will address inter-Korean concerns during his meetings with world leaders in Shanghai, his American counterpart is expected first and foremost to mobilize as much South Korean support for the campaign against terrorism as possible. One need not be a prophet to predict, that the terrorism issue will overshadow all other issues at the first major international gathering of political leaders after the attacks. In a swift move, Seoul expressed its solidarity with the US and offered South Korean assistance, specifying that the scale and nature of that support would be at about the same level provided during the Gulf War about a decade ago. At that time, South Korea dispatched a medical unit and five transport aircraft along with 300 operational personnel. In addition, Seoul chipped in US$500 million to assist the US-led multinational force fighting Iraq.
This time, Washington has not yet spelled out what exactly it expects from its South Korean ally. There have been reports, though, that the US could ask for up to three times the sum Seoul had given back in 1991. Like in other democracies, in South Korea too an intensive debate is waging whether the country should commit ground troops to the military campaign abroad. While the government has not ruled this out, it has tied this eventuality to a number of conditions: the overall military developments, domestic public opinion, the actual level of US requests, the position of Washington's other allies and South Korea's relations with Arab and other Muslim nations.
These are a puzzle of variables, that seem to leave all doors open for Kim. Should he take South Korean public opinion into account, chances that combat troops are dispatched are slim -- according to recent opinion polls about 70 percent of South Koreans are opposed to dispatching ground troops. Probably just as discomforting for Washington, more than 50 percent of those polled oppose the US military operations in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Kim said in a recent newspaper interview that Seoul doesn't have any plan to send combat troops abroad. But he hastened to add, "terror can happen to anybody, and therefore we are willing to contribute whatever we can." Presumably, it is this kind of unconditional support Bush is expecting from his South Korean counterpart, when the two leaders meet in Shanghai.
Ronald Meinardus is the resident representative of the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation in Seoul and a commentator on Korean affairs.
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