Saturday, September 9, 2000
S. Korean leader suggests
'two-plus-two' treaty approachBy Jim Lea
Osan bureau chief
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung suggested a new approach to obtaining a peace treaty with North Korea.
In a meeting with President Clinton in New York on Thursday, Kim proposed that the two Koreas negotiate and sign a treaty on their own, with the United States and China signing as guarantors, officials at both the presidential press office and the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry in Seoul said. Kim calls it a "two-plus-two" approach.
The officials quoted presidential spokesman Park Joon-young, who is in New York with Kim, as saying Clinton agreed that the two Koreas must work out the treaty and that Washington would give any support necessary.
The officials in Seoul said Kim’s proposal is an attempt to get Korean War peace talks on track. The 1950-53 conflict ended with an armistice that left the two countries technically at war. The two Koreas, the United States and China agreed five years ago to hold so-called Four-Party Talks to work out a peace treaty.
When the talks began, Pyongyang refused to hold any dialogue with Seoul, even though representatives of North and South Korea sat at a table together.
Six sessions have been held in Geneva, without even an agreement on a peace talk agenda. The deadlock has been caused by Pyongyang’s demands that U.S. troops be withdrawn from the South and Seoul’s National Security Law be abolished before a treaty is discussed.
The security law calls North Korea an enemy of the state in the South and prohibits all contact with North Koreans unless approved in advance by the government. Kim is said to be studying ways to tone down the law.
Both Seoul and Washington have rejected Pyongyang’s demand for a U.S. troop withdrawal.
Pyongyang also wants to sign a Korean War peace treaty with Washington, not Seoul. U.S. officials have rejected that demand as well.
The last session of the Four-Party Talks was in August 1999. No new meetings have been scheduled.
The officials in Seoul said Kim believes the warming relationship between the two Koreas necessitates a new approach to obtaining a peace treaty. During the historic Inter-Korean Summit in June, Kim and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il agreed that peace between the two countries was something that must be worked out only between Seoul and Pyongyang.
During the Korean War, only South and North Korea declared war on each other. The United States led the United Nations Command, which fought on the side of Seoul. China fought on the side of Pyongyang, but Washington and Beijing did not formally declare war on each other.
Bae Gi-chul contributed to this
report.
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