Senior Officials Urge Permanent End to North Korea Crisis
(Washington Post forum February 6) (560)
By Kristofer Angle
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- A panel of top government officials agreed that cosmetic
solutions on the Korean peninsula are no longer an option.
"We're looking for something that will once and for all get the
nuclear weapons issue off of the Korean peninsula," said James Kelly,
assistant secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific affairs.
The panel, co-hosted by the Washington Post and South Korean newspaper
JoongAng Ilbo on February 6, brought together 17 experts on Korea. In
addition to Kelly, among them were: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz; Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), chairman of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations; Senator John Rockefeller (D-West
Virginia), member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and
ranking member of the Select Committee on Intelligence; Donald Gregg,
president of the Korea Society and former U.S. Ambassador to South
Korea; Hong-Koo Lee, chairman of the Seoul Forum for International
Affairs and former prime minister of the Republic of Korea; and
Kyung-Won Kim, president of the Institute of Social Sciences and Seoul
Forum and former South Korean national security advisor and ambassador
to the United Nations.
The panel talked at length about the possibility of a regime change in
North Korea, but there was no suggestion of the use of military force.
Kelly said: "We are still dedicated to a diplomatic solution. We're
trying to avoid a crisis."
Kim said he was skeptical of the current emphasis on dialogue.
"Talking, itself, will not have that much impact. What is important is
the substance." Kim called for an intense inspection regime that is
"more reliable and more thorough than what we had in the 1994 agreed
framework."
He warned that intrusive inspections intended to rid North Korea of
weapons of mass destruction would require significant incentives.
Wolfowitz said a nuclear-armed North Korea that has normal relations
with the rest of the world is "not gonna happen."
Lugar, expressed hope that if and when North Korea clearly agrees to
forgo its nuclear program that an enduring peace can prevail. If the
North Koreans cooperate, he said, "the Congress of the United States
can pass a non-aggression pact."
Rockefeller warned that ousting North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il would
be complicated. "I think if we're waiting for a regime to collapse,
that's not going to happen. I think if the North Koreans have to pull
in their belts another 2 or 3 inches, they will do that."
Rockefeller further described the North Korean state of affairs as a
"major crisis." North Korea, he said, is in the midst of a prolonged
and ruinous economic situation and seems fixed on clinging to what
sources of power they have. Rockefeller said: "That's all they have.
When you have [nuclear weapons] and others are scared of it that puts
you at the center of the world's attention."
Wolfowitz also spoke of his sincere concern for the "true humanitarian
catastrophe" in North Korea. He said that accepting large numbers
North Korean refugees, similar to a mass humanitarian evacuation in
Indochina about 20 years ago, was an idea the Bush administration
would "take seriously."
An operation such as this, Wolfowitz explained, would be purely
humanitarian and would be done with consideration to China.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
