YONHAP NEWS

(LEAD) S. Korea questions N. Korean demand for peace treaty

By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, Dec. 2 (Yonhap) -- South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said Wednesday that North Korea's repeated calls for a peace treaty on the peninsula seem aimed at buying time for nuclear weapons development.

Yu's comments at an academic forum in Seoul were leveled at Pyongyang, which has increasingly demanded talks for a peace regime ahead of its long-awaited bilateral dialogue with the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. Stephen Bosworth, Obama's senior envoy on North Korea, is scheduled to fly into Pyongyang on Dec. 8 for a meeting with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju, who is known to oversee the communist nation's diplomatic policies.

In recent weeks, the North's official media have carried a series of reports declaring that the current armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War should be replaced with a peace treaty.

   "North Korea's talk of a peace pact is viewed as being intended to buy time, distract attention, and continue nuclear weapons development in order to be recognized as a nuclear state like Pakistan and India," the minister said.

   South Korea and the U.S. alike admit to the need for establishing a peace mechanism on the tension-ridden peninsula, though the allies have urged the North to first eliminate its nuclear program in a "complete and verifiable way."

   Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reaffirmed in a recent media interview that if the North does so, the U.S. "would explore some of the issues which they have raised continually with us over the years; namely, normalization of relations, a peace treaty instead of an armistice, economic development assistance."

   South Korea's top diplomat made clear that Seoul is opposed to any discussion on a peace treaty that involves only North Korea and the U.S., saying it requires four-way consultations that include South Korea and China, which also took part in the Korean War.

   "North Korea's position is that it has already resolved the issue with South Korea through the 1992 Basic Agreement and that a peace treaty should be signed with the U.S.," Yu said. "But a peace treaty should be discussed between South and North Korea as well as the U.S. and China."

   The four nations and the other two participants in the Beijing-based nuclear talks --Japan and Russia -- created a working group forum to discuss the peace regime issue within the context of the six-party talks, though it has remained dormant amid Pyongyang's refusal to return to the multilateral negotiations apparently in favor of bilateral dialogue with Washington.

   Yu said that security guarantees for North Korea are included in a joint communique signed between the U.S. and North Korea in 2000, the fruit of efforts by the Clinton administration to reach out to the North in its final months in office.

   The two countries agreed in the communique to take measures to fundamentally improve their relations based on the "changed environment on the peninsula" following the landmark first summit between leaders of the two Koreas earlier in the year.

   Then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and North Korean Marshal Jo Myong-rok exchanged visits to each other's capitals to produce the document, which later lost all significance during the Bush administration.

   lcd@yna.co.kr
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