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Members of a National Assembly Defense Committee who recently came in for a drubbing by U.S. and Japanese officials have revealed more details of their uncomfortable tour of Tokyo, Washington and Hawaii.
They say the Japan Defense Agency expressed surprise in that South Korean ruling party legislators appeared to justify North Korea¡¯s development of nuclear weapons at a time when Seoul needed to take a firm stand against it. The agency¡¯s leadership also reportedly said there was definitely a problem in the relationship between South Korea and the United States. ¡°It appears the United States has come to distrust South Korea,¡± they said.
Japan¡¯s outspoken Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi reportedly said, "The South Korea-U.S.-Japan relationship is very important in resolving the North Korean nuclear dispute, but the problem was South Korea... It¡¯s questionable whether South Korea stands with us. On the contrary, I wonder if the South is moving in the opposite direction.¡±
Grand National Party lawmaker Park Jin, who is on the Defense Committee, went off on his own to meet a high-ranking U.S. official, who told him the Chinese government was divided between pragmatists and hardliners on the North Korea issue. Park said the official told him Chinese President Hu Jintao supported the pragmatists, but again South Korea was the problem. According to the official, Chinese pragmatists were telling the U.S. that as long as Seoul continues to ¡°appease¡± the North and take a low-key approach, Beijing cannot take the lead in persuading Pyongyang. According to the official, South Korea held the key to resolving the issue, Park said.
Park also quoted the unnamed official as saying, ¡°After Korea and the U.S. agreed in 2003 on OPLAN 5029 [a joint military plan for contingencies in North Korea including mass defections and natural disaster], Seoul belatedly called for it to be cancelled, and the South Korean government intentionally leaked this to the press.¡± Park said the U.S. official called this ¡°a slap in the face for an ally¡± which had damaged the bilateral relationship.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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