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President Lee Myung-bak told the Chosun Ilbo on Sunday he is not opposed to a summit between U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il if it helps efforts to denuclearize North Korea. Efforts to resolve Washington-Pyongyang problems will help achieve the goals of the six-party talks, he added.
Obama had expressed readiness to meet leaders of what Bush termed the "axis of evil." When he was elected, North Korea dispatched its Foreign Ministry's America chief Ri Gun to the U.S. to start a dialogue. At the same time, however, it sent an inspection team to the Kaesong Industrial Complex on Thursday, which hinted a possible closure of the industrial park. It's a step on from a warning the North made early in October that continued dropping of propaganda leaflets from the South could have an impact on the complex.
Things seem to be playing into the hands of North Korea¡¯s strategy to deal directly with the U.S., and freeze out the South. But of course, if it helps denuclearization, there is no reason to oppose a North Korea-U.S. summit. Let Pyongyang claim it as a diplomatic victory and the pro-North Korean force in the South agree: there is no reason to be upset.
South Korea¡¯s aim is to create conditions enabling the South and North to live in peace without nuclear weapons. To achieve that, we should work on our cooperation with the incoming U.S. administration, which will soon talk with the North. We need a mechanism whereby Seoul and Washington can fine-tune their strategy at any time to make sure they remain in step with inter-Korean relations. After all, the North was also effectively communicating solely with the U.S. and blocking out the South during the Kim Young-sam administration, but we managed to include a call for the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue in the 1994 Geneva Accords.
North Korea expects political rewards from its dialogue with the U.S., such as turning the armistice into a peace treaty, opening diplomatic offices in Washington and Pyongyang and a ticket to the international community. But if the North is to become a self-sustaining country that does not starve its population, exports products and imports what it needs, it must revive its economy.
And for that it needs South Korea more than the U.S. It is the South that will cover the lion's share of the North's financial need, with China and Japan extending some assistance. Based on that evident fact, we should map out ways to wake the North from its illusion that money will start pouring from the sky if only it talks directly to the U.S. and freezes out the South.
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