'Jekyl and Hyde' North Korea at crossroads
'Jekyl and Hyde' North Korea at crossroads
By Bill Tarrant
SEOUL (Reuters): North Korea is at a crossroads, with one path
leading to confrontation and another to reconciliation, officials
said during U.S. President Bill Clinton's weekend visit to South
Korea.
Policymakers see North Korea as exhibiting Jekyll and Hyde
tendencies.
In recent-months, North Korea has launched a rocket over
Japan, been spotted in satellite photos building an underground
facility that could be nuclear-related and has infiltrated
commandos into South Korea.
But Pyongyang last week welcomed the first South Korean
tourists to visit the secretive, Stalinist state since the Korean
peninsula was divided.
It recently installed a new government and changed the
constitution to allow the first, tentative moves toward a market
economy.
And last month agreed to some procedural moves that allow
peace talks, which would end almost a half-century state of war
on the Peninsula, to resume next January in Geneva.
"This is a very complicated regime with a very complicated
leadership picture and you see conflicting signals," U.S.
National Security Advisor Sandy Berger told reporters last
Saturday after Clinton held talks with South Korean President Kim
Dae-jung.
"North Korea is now at a crossroads," said Berger who took
part in the talks.
"On the one hand, it can seize the opportunity afforded by the
fact that...President Kim is extending a hand to North Korea and
is probably more inclined to engagement and reconciliation,"
Berger said.
"Or it can continue to be a totally isolated, self-contained
entity which obviously is failing economically and seeks to
preserve its place in the world only through military means."
Since taking office in February, Kim has pursued a "sunshine
policy" of increased cultural and business contacts with North
Korea to gradually cement ties and open up the reclusive state.
Senior officials in Kim's administration have said the last
thing their slumping economy needs right now is a sudden
reunification with the North. The sunshine policy is aimed, in
part, at staving off a catastrophic collapse in North Korea.
Clinton made it clear after his Saturday talks with Kim that he
supports that policy.
But he said the recent North Korean acts were of "deep
concern" to him and warned Pyongyang not to do anything to force
Washington to abandon its policy of engagement.
Washington has been particularly disturbed by North Korea's
development of an underground site near Yongbyon where a Soviet-
era nuclear power plant has been mothballed under a 1994
agreement between the United States and North Korea.
Under that deal, Washington agreed to provide North Korea with
two advanced nuclear power reactors and alternative energy
supplies in return for Pyongyang freezing its nuclear program.
A U.S. official visited North Korea this week but failed to
persuade Pyongyang to allow an inspection of the site.
The Washington Post last Friday reported North Korea is
building at least two new launch facilities for the medium-range
Taepo Dong missile it fired over Japan on Aug. 31 and has stepped
up production of short-range missiles.
Hunger for cash seems to be one common thread running through
North Korea's recent actions.
It is heavily reliant on outside aid to feed its 22 million
people and so desperate for hard currency, that according to
South Korea's intelligence agency, it is counterfeiting $15
million of U.S. currency a year.
Hyundai Group, which launched the historic first cruise to
North Korea's "Diamond Mountains" last week, has agreed to pay
Pyongyang almost $1 billion over the next five years to ship
tourists to the resorts it is building there.
North Korea has reportedly asked Washington for $300 million
in "reparations" for allowing an inspection of the underground
site and $500 million a year in exchange for halting its missile
exports.
"Having now been engaged for almost six years in negotiations
with the North Koreans, this is not untypical of North Korean
negotiating tactics," Berger said.