A growing number of U.S. officials appear resigned that North Korea is a de facto nuclear power, and it is time for South Korean politicians to join hands to make the Korean Peninsula nuclear free, says a lawmaker who just returned from a visit to America. Grand National Party Rep. Park Jin was among a group of legislators who spoke with senior White House and State Department officials about what the U.S. has in mind for North Korea this month. The group also included fellow GNP lawmaker Hwang Jin-ha and Uri Party lawmakers Chung Eui-yong and Kim Myung-ja,

But a senior official at the U.S. National Security Council told Park that Washington will only formally declare an end to the Korean War when it concludes that North Korea has become safe. He said the U.S. will approach the issue very carefully, according to the lawmaker. The key aide to U.S. President George W. Bush said a declaration of peace is the final step to be taken after the North disables its nuclear facilities.

That seems to run counter to the South Korean government’s view that peace can be declared along the way to full disablement. The South Korean Unification Ministry is mulling a two-phase peace plan in the belief that declaring end of war early will speed up implementation of the Feb. 13 six-nation agreement requiring the North initially to shut down the facilities. In the second phase, a peace treaty would be signed. However, a senior White House official said North Korea must fully report all nuclear substances it has, including enriched uranium the U.S. accuses it of developing, and hand them over before a peace treaty can be signed.

According to Park, the White House official added that the U.S. has many ideas on a peace mechanism that would replace the armistice that technically still halts hostilities on the peninsula, but the top priority was the disablement of the North Korean nuclear program. He made it clear that UN Command in South Korea, which oversees the armistice, will not be dissolved in the near future, as North Korea demands.

The White House official also said Washington is not rushing to strike North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism; before that happens, he said, there must be progress on the nuclear issue. The official reportedly expressed dissatisfaction that South Korea and China did not join the U.S. in pressuring North Korea to implement the February agreement as soon as possible. In that, he echoed U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow’s remarks that progress in inter-Korean relations should be coordinated with the six way denuclearization process. Park quoted the official as saying Seoul should use more stick with North Korea sometimes. He also lamented that Chinese customs officials do not properly control the flow of luxury goods to North Korea, which are apparently indispensable to maintain the hold of the Kim Jong-il regime.

(englishnews@chosun.com )