Seoul Calm About North's Snubs

South Korean government officials said that the outlook for Red Cross talks with North Korea, scheduled for next Tuesday, looks dim, but they expressed cautious optimism that the hiatus in their talks will not last long.

The two sides' Red Cross committees had agreed in January to hold the next round of talks on April 3-5, but senior government officials doubted that there would be a positive signal after Pyongyang canceled two commitments recently without clear explanations.

"At the moment, the outlook is negative," said a senior Unification Ministry official close to the matter. "We understand the North's position and with their hectic schedule - the visit by the North's leader to Russia next month - we plan not to rush them."

Since the Seoul-Washington summit this month, in which President George W. Bush expressed "some skepticism" about the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, Pyongyang has increased its anti-U.S. rhetoric.

The South Korean government believes that the North is "temporarily" delaying further contacts in reaction to a harder line from Washington. But considering that Pyongyang was making active efforts last year to strike a breakthrough in relations with the Clinton administration, South Korea will for the time being take a "wait-and-see" position and will not rush the North, officials said.

On March 13, the North abruptly called off cabinet-level talks with the South just a few hours the opening of the meeting, and this week it called off plans for an inter-Korean table tennis team to compete in next month's world championships

"North Korea is just trying to send a message to the United States through us," said Kim Sung-han, of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security. "What they are trying to convey to Washington is not to take too long in reviewing its policy and to adopt a policy that would follow up Clinton's policy."

Excessive delay in formulating its policy toward North Korea would burden both countries, Professor Kim said. "North Korea promised to maintain a moratorium on long-range missile tests for the duration of talks with the United States. However, if Washington delays talks with Pyongyang for long, this is going to damage the North's pride and they may look into scrapping the agreement."

Other analysts noted that the Bush administration's early indications that it will not carry forward the Clinton administration's diplomacy seeking to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs has bolstered the skeptics of President Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine policy."

But the Defense Ministry in Seoul was publicly unworried about North Korea's continuing buildup of conventional military forces near the Demilitarized Zone. "Such an increase is only a part of their defense plan and does not mean the military threat posed by North Korea has soared," said an official.

He was reacting to recent remarks by the commander of U.S. forces in Korea that the military threat has increased in the past year in spite of North Korea's battered economy. "When I look north I see an enemy that's bigger, better, closer and deadlier, and I can prove it," Gen. Thomas Schwartz said in a Senate hearing in Washington..

Park Sung-choon, the ministry's director of military intelligence, said, "Even on the basis of the same information, the expression and understanding of the data can vary according to the timing and perspective of analysis."

by Lee Soo-jeong