-- When former U.S. ambassador to Korea Donald Gregg and Don Oberdorfer visited Pyongyang in November 2002, they were given a personal message from Kim Jong-il to give to President Bush. When you were there just ahead of them in October, was no such message given to you?

“Vice Foreign Minister Kang Seok-ju, when I met him, made fairly combative and hostile claims, and then toward the end mentioned the need for direct dialogue between high-ranking U.S. and North Korean officials. The U.S. had little interest in this at the time, because we were very disappointed by North Korea’s uranium enrichment program, which is presumed to have secretly started three years earlier during the Clinton administration. During the Clinton administration, we used no ‘hostile language’ about North Korea, so because of the shock, the U.S. was persuading South Korea and Japan that it would suspend heavy oil shipments to the North. The message Oberdorfer conveyed was not for President Bush, and since its content didn’t differ from previous statements, it didn’t change the situation.

-- What is the fundamental reason why the North Korean nuclear issue is not being resolved?

“Because North Korea is not making a strategic choice to give up its nuclear program to earn security guarantees and economic benefits. As long as North Korea refuses to end its military-first policies, which it has followed for 10 years, it will be difficult to resolve the nuclear issue.”

-- Yet even within the U.S., there are those that say the problem isn’t being solved because the U.S. position is to discuss compensation only after the North has completely abandoned its nuclear program.

“The U.S. position is not that it will discuss compensation only after North Korea has completely dismantled its nuclear program, but that discussions on concrete steps and plans, what each side should do and how, could begin as soon as North Korea promises to give up its nuclear program. North Korea must say that it will give up not only the plutonium is has reprocessed from 1994 until recently, but also plutonium it extracted prior to the 1994 Geneva Accords and the nuclear weapons it has produced with it, and the uranium enrichment program that was revealed in 2002; it must say it will give up everything and transparently accept verification.”

-- Do you think North Korea really has nuclear weapons?

“I think so. In fact, most officials within the U.S. administration that deal with the North Korea issue think so. It’s just that because the U.S. policy, which it stresses, is to resolve the nuclear issue peacefully, they are not putting priority on judging whether North Korea possesses nuclear weapons or not.”

-- Kim Jong-il said the 1991 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is still in effect, and that was the dying wish of the late leader Kim Il-sung: but isn’t that statement at odds with the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s “nuclear declaration” in February?

“Isn’t this perfectly normal North Korean behavior? I think North Korea believes that by confusing people this way it is playing a weak hand effectively.”

-- What do you think of Donald Gregg’s call for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to visit Pyongyang?

“The administration will consider it, but wouldn’t it be better if North Korea said it will rejoin the six-party talks right away? Direct talks between North Korea and the U.S. would mean that other nations like South Korea, Japan, China and Russia are not needed. But if one recalls that North Korea isn’t keeping the 1991 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which was agreed to by North and South Korea, on what basis can one recommend again an agreement between the U.S. and North Korea? What’s wrong if officials from the South Korean and Chinese governments are also there when the U.S. and North Korea meet in Pyongyang?”

-- The concept of “strategic flexibility,” allowing the U.S. Forces in Korea to be deployed outside the Korean Peninsula, is becoming an issue between South Korea and the U.S. Will the future relationship between the U.S. and China ultimately head toward conflict?

“Of course we are moving toward cooperation and mutual development. It’s just that China is growing so much that the entire world is watching, while at the same time modernizing its armed forces. It’s hard to say what long-term role China will play in the Asia-Pacific region, but the Korea-U.S. alliance mustn’t be seen as an ‘anti-China’ structure. Korea has to find its path after thinking about whether it’s a continental state, a maritime state or both. It doesn’t have to choose right away between the U.S. and China and stick with that decision forever; it has to figure out what will help its realistic national interests while always examining the situation around it. It could enjoy good relations will all nation, and its doing so well now. The Korea of today is different from the one of the past. It’s produced tremendous accomplishments. Korea is no longer a shrimp surrounded by whales.

The interview was translated back into English from the Korean version, which ran in the June 24 edition of the Chosun Ilbo.

(englishnews@chosun.com )