N. Korea declines to meet with U.S.,
S. Korea during ASEAN conference
By Jim Lea, Osan bureau chief
A hoped-for meeting between U.S., South Korean and Pyongyang
officials at this week’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum
meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, apparently will not occur.
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency on Friday quoted unnamed
Vietnamese diplomatic sources saying North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun will not
attend the Hanoi meeting. The report quoted the sources as saying Paek would not attend
“because of domestic concerns.”
A Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry official in Seoul would not
comment on the report except to say he had seen it.
Both U.S. and South Korean officials had hoped meetings between Paek,
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and South Korean Foreign Minister Han Seung-soo could
occur on the sidelines of the ASEAN conference. Such meetings, Seoul and Washington hoped,
would help restart talks with Pyongyang.
There have been no high-level meetings between Pyongyang and
Washington since last October. President Bush said in early June that he is ready to
resume discussions with the North. Pyongyang, angered by U.S. agenda proposals for the
talks, has taken no steps to restart high-level contacts.
Talks between Seoul and Pyongyang fell into limbo in March. The North
then was angry over the Bush administration’s review of its policy toward Pyongyang,
and comments the president and Secretary of State Colin Powell made about North Korean
leader Kim Jong Il and his regime.
Bush has said several times that regime is not trustworthy, and
Powell has called Kim a dictator.
As a result of that and the South Korean Defense Ministry calling the
North Seoul’s “main enemy” in a White Paper issued late last year,
Pyongyang halted all official contact with the South in March.
As for the hoped for Powell-Paek meeting in Hanoi, the State
Department said no such meeting was scheduled, but that both officials were to be in Hanoi
at the same time and possibly could meet.
Meanwhile, the South Korean press on Friday reported that Belgian
Ambassador to North Korea Koenraad Rouvroy said on Thursday dialogue between the two
Koreas will not resume unless talks between Pyongyang and Washington are restarted.
Rouvroy, who serves as ambassador to both Koreas, said he was told
that by North Korean officials in June. Those officials, he said, characterized the U.S.
government as “stupid.”
He said diplomats who have been stationed in the North Korean capital
for three or four years say there has been no change in the North’s hostile and
aggressive attitude toward either Washington or Seoul. He said he formed the impression
during his trip that the North is not prepared to change that attitude in the immediate
future.
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