Roh Assures NK Is Different from Iraq
2003-03-24
President Roh Moo-hyun on Monday (March 24) expressed his regret at “inaccurate and groundless” remarks made by U.S. officials regarding the North Korean nuclear row.
“Some people at home and abroad have raised the possibility that the North will be the next target of Washington's war (on global terrorism),” Roh was quoted as saying during his daily meeting with his top aides. “It is not the view of those who are in responsible positions and was made with no regard to the important role Seoul is playing in the settlement of the North Korean problem.”
Roh said top U.S. officials assured him that the North is different from Iraq, and therefore its nuclear challenge will be resolved through dialogue.
In a morning briefing, Roh's spokeswoman Song Kyoung-hee said Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yoon Young-kwan had recently asked the U.S. government to avoid making statements that could hurt the two countries' alliance.
Song took the example of reports on a background briefing by a senior official of the U.S. Department of Defense for Korean correspondents in Washington in which the official said U.S. forces stationed in Korea could leave Korea at a day's notice, if the Korean people don't want them on their soil.
The official who made the statement was top Pentagon official Richard Lawless, who is in charge of this region. During the briefing, Lawless also said U.S. forces would prefer to move out of Seoul and relocate to areas further south, arguing that they are not happy to play the role of “tripwire,” the concept that any North Korean invasion will meet U.S. forces to ensure the dispatch of reinforcements from the mainland U.S.
Lawless will visit Seoul next month to start negotiations with Seoul on how to realign 37,000 U.S. troops in Korea.
A source said Roh was upset by Lawless' remarks and conveyed this to Foreign Minister Yoon. Yoon had the president's view conveyed to Washington through the U.S. Embassy here.
President Roh, a liberal, was elected last December on a promise to bring equality to relations between the two countries.
However, the president has made a series of conciliatory moves to repair the two countries' relations.
He has repeatedly stressed the importance of the ROK-U.S. alliance. Last week, Roh went to the extent of saying that he wanted to put talks about repositioning U.S. troops on hold until the resolution of the North Korean nuclear crisis.
Source : www.korea.net
