Summit puts South in corner

Summit puts South in corner

SEOUL (AFP): South Korean leader Kim Dae-jung was driven into corner on Monday by his political opponents after the leaders of North Korea and Russia called for a withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Korean peninsula.

President Kim Dae-jung has said his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-il at their summit in June 2000 did not oppose the U.S. presence in the region left over since the two sides of the peninsula split after the Korean War in 1953.

But Kim Jong-il on Sunday during talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow called on the United States to "urgently" withdraw its 37,000 troops from the South.

Opposition leader Lee Hoi-chang's Grand National Party (GNP) said in a statement in Seoul Monday: "It's a fiction that the North has changed. The president either lied to the people or was deceived by the North."

The GNP urged President Kim, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to peace on the peninsula, to clarify the situation.

Lee, a strong candidate for next year's presidential elections, demanded the government conduct a thorough review of its diplomatic policy.

Lee said: "Our relationship with traditional allies is either deteriorating or at a standstill, but Russia expressed its understanding at North Korea's position on U.S. forces in Korea. I am concerned that our diplomatic standing is weakening."

In reply South Korean Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Yim Sung-joon said: "The issue of U.S. troops in South Korea is a subject to discussed between Seoul and Washington, not with a third party."

In a statement signed by Putin and Kim Jong-il, Pyongyang said the withdrawal of U.S. troops was a "pressing problem" which needed to be solved to ensure "peace and security on the Korean peninsula."

Moscow expressed its "understanding" of the North Korean position, stressing the need to ensure "peace and stability on the Korean peninsula using peaceful means," Russian news agencies reported.

Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il arrived in Russia's second city Saint Petersburg on Monday, for a visit mixing culture with a tour of a plant supplying the nuclear power industry.

The reclusive Kim's train pulled into the city's Moskovsky railway station at 0900 am (12 at noon in Jakarta), where he was met by Saint Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev and President Vladimir Putin's regional envoy, Viktor Cherkesov.

Tight security measures were in force, with all trains canceled for two-and-a-half hours as police cordoned off the station.

Kim is due to return to Moscow on Tuesday and attend a series of cultural events on Wednesday before starting the return journey to Pyongyang that evening.