S-N Reconciliation Takes
Precedence over NK Nuke Crisis
Gains new momentum following the 60th Liberation Anniversary celebration

Overshadowed by the increasing reconciliatory mood in inter-Korean relations, anxieties over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs have taken a backseat.
The inter-Korean reconciliation has gained further momentum as the two Koreas celebrated the 60th anniversary of liberation from the 1910-1945 Japanese colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula.
President Roh Moo-hyun made little mention of the delicately poised nuclear negotiations during his Liberation Day address, instead focusing his speech on the need to resolve domestic political conflicts.
At the same time, the presence of a high-level North Korean government delegation at the joint celebrations in Seoul continued to break down deeply entrenched animosities between the two nations, which technically remain at war. On August 14, 30 delegates visited the National Cemetery in an unprecedented tribute to South Korea's war dead.
Despite no official discussions on the nuclear issue, Unification Ministry officials have said the inter-Korean Liberation Day celebrations will provide a boost to the six-nation talks when they reconvene in Beijing later this month. The standoff may also be touched on if North Korean chief delegate Kim Ki-nam calls on Roh at the presidential office tomorrow, as officials have hinted.
But critics have raised concerns that the closeness displayed by the two Koreas could undermine the multilateral talks and exacerbate an apparent split between Seoul and Washington on the nuclear issue.
Comments by Unification Minister Chung Dong-young last week in support of North Korea's right to continue running a nuclear energy program appeared to directly conflict with the U.S. demand that the Communist nation scrap all nuclear programs, civilian and military. Some U.S.-based international relations specialists said Washington may feel isolated in seeing the two Koreas holding joint celebrations at a crucial juncture in the nuclear talks. The six nations agreed on Aug. 7 to recess the negotiations until the last week of this month in order to return to their respective capitals for further consultations.Charles Pritchard, visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said China, Russia and South Korea all appear to have sided with the North over its right to keep a peaceful nuclear program.
"There is a danger that the United States has not aligned itself with the rest of the nations at the six-party talks,"Pritchard told a forum held to discuss the nuclear crisis. Pyongyang's desire to keep its nuclear energy facilities has emerged as the main stumbling block in the negotiations.North Korea's top nuclear negotiator proposed a compromise on the issue, saying it is prepared to accept strict monitoring of any peaceful nuclear plants. "The U.S. itself can have direct participation or the U.S. can pick a nation that they trust,"Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan said in an interview with U.S. television network CNN from Pyongyang.
Kim also said North Korea is willing to prove that it does not have a uranium-based nuclear program. The U.S. claimed in 2002 that Pyongyang was running a uranium-enrichment program, sparking a series of events that led to the current standoff. "We don't have any uranium-based weapons program, but in the future if there is any kind of evidence that needs to be clarified we will be fully prepared to do so,"the North Korean diplomat said. South and North Korean delegates celebrated the 60th anniversary of Liberation Day together in Seoul Monday, calling for unity and peace on the Korean Peninsula while stressing the need to "fend off unjustified foreign intervention."Officials from both governments and civic delegations from the South and North, as well as overseas Koreans, gathered in the morning at Jangchung Gymnasium for the official ceremony to mark the anniversary. Civic representatives Paik Nak-chung from the South, Ahn Kyong-ho from the North and Kwang Dong-eui from the overseas group each read messages. While commemorating Liberation Day, together they lamented the 60 years of national division and called for more independent cooperation as "one Korean people"on unification issues. In a joint declaration entitled "Statement of Appeal to 70 million Compatriots,"members of the delegations said true liberation will be complete only when the division of the Korean Peninsula is overcome.
"Let us tear down the barrier of division and achieve the unification of an independent country by joining hands with our own people,"the statement said. "Let us clear away the old relics of confrontation and distrust."Some 400 South, North and overseas Korean delegates paid a visit to the History Hall of Seodaemun Prison, where Korean independence fighters served jail terms and endured torture during Japan's colonial rule over the nation (1910-1945). There they issued a special statement urging Japan to stop whitewashing its colonial history and expanding its military. "I think Japan is truly a cruel enemy of our people and we cannot live together under one sky,"said Jung Chi-gun, a history professor from Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, looking around the prison. "All Korean people should do their utmost to condemn Japan's aggression so that this history won'y be repeated."While celebrations continued throughout the day at Jangchung Gymnasium, government delegations of the South and North gathered at Kim Koo Museum in the afternoon and held a brief ceremony. Kim, a late independence fighter assassinated in 1949, is regarded as one of the founding fathers of South Korea.
"Let's end the confrontation and replace the ceasefire on the Korean Peninsula with a permanent peace system by pursuing peace and prosperity in turn,"Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, head of the South's government delegation, said."The South and North, the owners of this land, should take the lead in establishing peace on this land."Kim Ki-nam, head of the North's delegation, said the "dramatic changes in North-South relations today are the valuable results of belief in the cooperation of one Korean people."
Wrapping up the Liberation Day celebrations for all the delegates was a performance by a South Korean dance troupe and dinner gala held at the Sheraton Grande Walkerhill hotel, where the North Korean delegates stayed until Thursday. There has been a sign of bickering between South Korea and the United States regarding how to deal with the lingering crisis over North Korea's attempt to develop nuclear weapons.North Korea should be allowed to maintain a peaceful nuclear energy program as long as it verifiably scraps its weapons development, a top South Korean official said, signaling a major split in opinion between Seoul and Washington in the nuclear negotiations.In an interview with local Internet portal Daum Media, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young argued that electricity-starved Pyongyang has the right to generate nuclear energy.
"Even before the recent six-party talks, we have said that if North Korea returns to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and allows inspections, it should have the right to pursue peaceful nuclear energy as a member of the treaty,"said Chung, who also serves as chairman of the National Security Council.
The United States has demanded North Korea give up all nuclear programs, including those for energy generation, and the issue was one of the biggest stumbling blocks at the recent six-nation negotiations aimed at ending the nuclear standoff. Chung was unusually frank about the difference in opinion between South Korea and the U.S., its long-standing military ally. "We think differently from the U.S. on this,"he was quoted as saying. Earlier, Song Min-soon, South Korea's top negotiator at the nuclear talks, hinted that he will try to convince the U.S. to accept North Korea's running of a peaceful nuclear program.
"Our position is that North Korea should abandon its nuclear program and then we will adjust differences (with other countries) to pave the way for them to pursue a peaceful nuclear program as a sovereign state,"he told SBS television network. But Christopher Hill, Washington's chief delegate, appeared to brush off the remarks, reiterating his country's opposition to Pyongyang operating nuclear programs of any kind. Hill said North Korea broke its promise to refrain from developing nuclear weapons and should be barred from using nuclear energy as a precaution.
"This is a country, I think, that had trouble keeping peaceful energy peaceful,"he said. "There's a track record there that needs to be dealt with."The U.S. diplomat also said South Korea's proposal to provide 2 million kilowatts of electricity to the communist North makes it unnecessary for Pyongyang to run nuclear power plants. "To be talking about retaining the right of peaceful use at this point seems like the wrong subject,"Hill told a news conference. "They should be focusing on what they need to do to get out of this weapons business and get into the business of providing electricity for their citizens."North Korea, for its part, has indicated that it views the issue as the "crux"of resolving the nuclear standoff. "The U.S. has refused to accept our peaceful nuclear program,"Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea's vice foreign minister, was quoted as saying at a briefing following the conclusion of the third round of multilateral talks in Beijing. Experts said this tug-of-war between Seoul and Washington is likely to dominate nuclear consultations scheduled over the next two weeks. The six-party negotiations, which dragged on for 13 days with few signs of progress, are set to resume late this month after a three-week recess. It is unclear how North Korea? desire to keep its nuclear energy programs is viewed by the other three participants at the talks, namely Japan, China and Russia. Most politics observers, though, predict that Japan would likely back the U.S. in opposing such a concession. Meanwhile, an article contributed to the Christian Science Monitor argues that South Korea's nonchalant attitude toward the North? nuclear programs stems from its belief that it will inherit Pyongyang's nuclear capacity when the Korean Peninsula is reunified.
"In Seoul's long-term calculus, the North Korean bomb is the 'Korean bomb,'which will benefit Seoul after eventual reunification,"said the article, written by commentator Choe Won-joon and Jack Kim. "Not only does South Korea not fear the North Korean nukes; it seemingly welcomes them with open arms."Since liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, the tiny Korean Peninsula has undergone tremendous changes on fronts - political, economic and social. After the upheaval of the 1950-53 Korean War, the two Koreas took drastically different routes to the new millennium. One emerged as an industrial state boasting the 11th largest economy in the world, while the other nosedived into poverty and deficiency, yet with a vaunted military power and most recently nuclear ambitions. North Korea`s nuclear programs have protruded as one of the key security threats in Northeast Asia with the Communist state`s ambitious attempt at "balance of terror."The phrase "balance of terror"harks back to the Cold War when the United States and the Soviet Union kept counter-balanced each other by competitively building up their nuclear arms to the extent that each feared an attack and counter-attack would destroy the world.
Balance of terror also became an efficient phrase to describe the following world order that pivoted around mass destruction capacities, with countries like Britain, France and China joining the list of nuclear-weapons states. India, Pakistan and Israel have also succeeded in making their own nuclear weapons covertly. The nuclear states also prevented such weaponry from spreading further by executing tools like the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the inspection authority of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as the U.N. Security Council. Since 1979, the United States has maintained a list of rogue countries that pose a security threat regarding weapons of mass destruction or supported or neglected activities of terrorists, who could develop their own nuclear weapons without being concerned about retaliatory nuclear attacks. North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Libya and Sudan as of April 27 this year, belong to the list.
Suspicions of North Korea developing its nuclear arson began to escalate in 1992, when the Communist state, then a member of the NPT, refused to disclose some of its facilities, claiming they were for military use. The IAEA also raised suspicions that the North had extracted plutonium exceeding the reported amount. Although the NPT does not ban use of reprocessing of fuel rods or enrichment of uranium - which can be used to develop nuclear weapons - North Korea's covert actions prompted widespread suspicion it was getting ready to build nuclear arms. The disclosure was almost simultaneous to the two Koreas' joint declaration January 1992 pledging to keep the peninsula nuclear-free by banning any kind of nuclear weapons development program and possession of nuclear reprocessing or uranium enrichment facilities. As the international suspicion of its nuclear weapons programs escalated, North Korea resorted to its usual brinkmanship style by threatening to quit the NPT.
In an effort to stop the North from abandoning the security tool, the United States met North Korea in New York one-on-one in June 1993 and promised a second round in Geneva the next month. Both efforts were in vain. All kinds of pressure were used against the hermit state, including approval by the United Nation for another IAEA investigation and South Korean warnings of intensified military drills. When North Korea continued to deny further IAEA inspection, the agency agreed to refer the case to the U.N. Security Council, a measure desperately opposed by the North. But instead of pulling back, the North once again played its version of the "chicken game" and began to extract all 8,000 fuel rods from its 5 megawatt reactor. These fuel rods were the most important evidence to prove North Korea`s past plutonium extraction records, and enough for five or six nuclear weapons when reprocessed. The North Korean case was finally referred to the Security Council in June, and sanctions were decided against the Communist state. China, North Korea`s only ally, did not oppose the moves.
Tougher measures by Washington and Seoul against the Communist state started gaining speed but soon met an unexpected variable - former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who volunteered to visit the North despite the Clinton administration`s disapproval.
Carter quickly turned the defense standoff into a political one by holding a live interview with CNN after meeting then-North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, announcing the North had agreed to freeze nuclear facilities and to allow IAEA officials to remain in the North.
According to veteran correspondent Don Oberdorfer in his book ?he Two Koreas,?North Korea? position, boisterously relayed by Carter, was already well known by Washington, which had instead hoped to eradicate the very root of the North Korean nuclear problem. nw

President Roh Moo-hyun delivers a congratulatory speech during the 60th Liberation Day anniversary event on August 15.
(Above photo) Song Min-soon, South Korea's top negotiator at the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear standoff, hold talks with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan in Beijing. Christopher Hill, Washington? chief delegate, emerges from his Beijing talks with North Korea.