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Analysis: US Trip Hard Task for Kim Dae-jung
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's forthcoming five-day visit to the United States beginning on Wednesday is expected to be a hard task for the 2000 Nobel Peace winner for his contribution to the inter-Korean detente.
It has been well-known that Kim suggested the Washington summit as soon as Bush was sworn in to office last January due to his government's departure from the Clinton administration's DPRK policy.
The Bush administration has advocated a relationship with Pyongyang on "a strict and reciprocal basis" though it expressed support for Kim's reconciliation and cooperation policy towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Bush's inaugural address called the DPRK as "an enemy" of world peace. And Bush himself repeatedly stated his resolve to develop and deploy a national missile defense (NMD) system to "defend our allies and interests," and to shield the United States from missile attacks from what he called "rogue states" like the DPRK, Iran and Iraq.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the DPRK a " dictatorship," while Deputy Secretary of State Dick Armitage questioned the appropriateness of Kim's "sunshine policy," saying the Seoul's strategy unilaterally favors Pyongyang.
During his visit, President Kim's top task is to convince the Bush government to continue support for his engagement policy with the DPRK.
He is scheduled to meet other US administration officials, Congressional leaders and opinion leaders and former US ambassadors to South Korea and is expected accept an interview with the Washington Post for understanding and support for his DPRK policy
Because of U.S. officials' suggestion that serious considerations should be given to scrapping the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which South Korea, U.S. and Japan agreed to provide two light-water nuclear reactors to Pyongyang in return for the DPRK's promise to freeze its nuclear program, South Korean officials said the South Korean president will appeal to Bush to stick to the framework at the summit.
South Korean attitude to the NMD program will be another important issue to be discussed at the Kim-Bush summit.
Seoul's position on the U.S. NMD has been questioned after it agreed to uphold and strengthen the 1972 ABM Treaty as a cornerstone of strategic stability in the South Korean-Russian Joint Statement issued after Kim-Putin summit in Seoul on February 28. It is seen as an indirect demonstration of Seoul's objection to the US NMD program.
In addition, observers speculate that South Korea might have to make a commitment during the summit to the purchase of US weapons worth nearly US$10 billion in return for Washington's continued support for its "sunshine" policy.
All these indicate that Kim's US trip will be a hard job focusing on "a careful coordination" between the two allies, particularly in view of DPRK leader Kim Jong Il's visit to Seoul in the first half of this year, which Seoul described as a "great chance" for the establishment of peace mechanism on the Korean peninsula.
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