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A senior presidential aide accompanying the president on his foreign trip on Thursday said President Roh Moo-hyun¡¯s overture of ¡°unconditional¡± talk with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il should be taken ¡°as the expression of a will for the president of South Korea¡¦ to present a solution. We want to find a solution, not a slogan." Back in Seoul, a senior government official said, "We can¡¯t just leave such critical decisions in the hands of the U.S.¡± And the special envoy on international security, Moon Chung-in, told a seminar on Thursday the president's remarks ¡°mean that his patience with U.S. President Bush is running out, and express a will to make a breakthrough because the U.S. administration is taking only negative steps against North Korea."
That suggests the government will soon propose an independent solution to the North Korea question, a move it considers necessary because it feels that the U.S.¡¯ strategy of boxing in the North from all sides by focusing on its human rights record and illicit activities does not take the situation on the peninsula into consideration.
But this shift -- from making a summit conditional on a resolution to the nuclear standoff to unconditional aid and to going it alone without the U.S. -- is drastic indeed. What¡¯s more, it is the first we hear of it. The chief executive thought it appropriate to bring up a matter of this magnitude abruptly in a meeting with Korean residents in Mongolia, and his aides provide a gloss adding little code-words like ¡°slogan¡± and ¡°solution.¡± That has prompted growing anxiety among the public here.
The U.S., meanwhile, is accelerating its own solution. A U.S. senator who played a leading role in the North Korea Human Rights Act told a press conference Wednesday that the U.S. policy toward the North is tilting in the direction of the Helsinki process of the 1970s, which put human rights on the agenda for the people of Eastern Europe. American activists say the U.S. will accept a considerable number of North Korean refugees this year, and they agree that Washington¡¯s policy toward Pyongyang is shifting its focus from nuclear negotiations to human rights.
If Seoul is trying to turn up the sunshine while Washington wants to choke the North with pressure, neither policy can succeed. The only thing that will grow is the noise from clashes between South Korea and the U.S. The president and his handlers should refrain from mentioning the new solution to the North Korea question until he is back from his trip. Once here, they should explain exactly what they have in mind and seek to persuade the public that it is right.
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