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Koreas open talks, focus on terrorism
©New York Times, SEOUL, South Korea -- A ministerial delegation from North Korea arrived here on Saturday to begin a four-day series of meetings heavily dominated by the issue of terrorism. It is the first high-level dialogue between the two countries in six months. The hastily arranged discussions came about after North Korea suddenly accepted a South Korean invitation last week. It was apparently an effort by the North to shield the South's former unification minister, Lim Dong Won, from mounting domestic criticism that South Korea had been providing large-scale economic aid to the North with scant political benefits to show. Lim has been a forceful advocate of rapprochement between the two countries. North Korea's acceptance of the invitation came too late to save Lim, who resigned last week and was replaced, along with much of the cabinet. In the meantime, analysts of Korean affairs said the international context for talks between the two countries has shifted drastically because of this week's terrorist attacks on the United States. Long-stalled projects, like opening rail lines between the two countries and arranging more frequent visits between families separated by the Korean War, are taking a back seat to declarations of opposition to international terrorism. During a toast Saturday evening before the talks began, the South Korean prime minister, Lee Han Dong, proposed to North Korea that it join the international front against terrorism. Beating him to the rhetorical punch, North Korea's chief negotiator, Kim Ryong Song, had already declared at Seoul's Inchon Airport that North Korea "felt sorry about the terrorist attacks, which were a catastrophe to the United States and shocked the entire world." Earlier, the North Korean government had described the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as "a shocking incident, which we think is very regrettable." Kim insisted, however, that the issue of terrorism must be kept separate from reconciliation talks between the two countries. Comments like these reflect how the week's events in the United States have abruptly taken on a central importance in rapprochement between the two countries, in which little progress has been made since a summit meeting in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in June 2000. The Bush administration had taken a much more skeptical view of North Korea than the Clinton administration, citing North Korea's production of crude missiles as a prime justification for a proposed shield against intercontinental weapons.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
