Korea Sees Mixed Messages In U.S. Words on Pyongyang

WASHINGTON ? The South Korean government is baffled by the mixed messages it has been getting from President Bush and his foreign policy and defense team.

"It is perplexing, because the Bush administration and his advisers have not yet settled on their North Korea policy," said an official who accompanied President Kim Dae-jung on his summit visit to U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington.

While Mr. Bush emphasized in a joint news conference his "skepticism" toward North Korea, the joint statement following the summit on Wednesday stated his support for Mr. Kim's sunshine policy of engaging the North. Some media companies changed their headlines and news reports overnight, a diplomatic source said.

The U.S. discord persisted into Thursday. Secretary of State Colin Powell, two days after saying that the new administration plans to engage with the North and "pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off," reversed his stance Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and took a harder line, branding the North a "failed society" with a "despotic" leader and a "broken" political system ready to collapse once opened to the outside world.

Further, whereas the joint statement pegged down the two leaders' commitment to the 1994 Agreed Framework, at the senate hearing Mr. Powell hinted at reappraising the agreement.

Some analysts believe the confusion results from a U.S. North Korea team that hasn't yet had time to settle since the new administration took office. A diplomatic source noted that Mr. Powell shifted position after his dovish statement on Tuesday drew fire from harder-line Bush aides.

by Kim Jin-kook