Kim Doubtful on Return Visit

In an interview with Newsweek magazine, President Kim Dae-jung said relations between Washington and Pyongyang are the key to whether North Korean leader Kim Jong-il visits Seoul this year.

Mr. Kim told the magazine, "Northern leaders, including Chairman Kim, repeatedly promise a return visit. We believe he will visit Seoul within this year. But the variable is North Korea - U.S. relations, and that remains uncertain.

"If the United States and North Korea resume talks and begin negotiations on missiles and other issues, Kim's visit will be more certain," Mr. Kim said in the April 12 interview published April 23.

Mr. Kim defended his sunshine policy, citing polls that show more than 70 percent of the people support it and more than 90 percent welcome Kim Jong-il's visit to Seoul.

It is the first time that the president suggested that Kim Jong-il's return visit might be in doubt. Fueling such doubts is the cancellation of recent inter-Korean contacts. The fourth inter-Korean Red Cross talks and plans to field a unified Korean table tennis team at the upcoming international event in Osaka, Japan, were abruptly canceled by Pyongyang. The North also backed out of the fifth inter-Korean ministerial dialogue on March 13 at the last minute, in the wake of diplomatic confusion between Seoul and Washington over North Korean policy.

A Seoul official said, on condition of anonymity, "It will be hard for the North to cancel the return visit; they are well aware that the international community is watching to gauge how credible Pyongyang's words are." Kim Jong-il's visit was agreed at the June 15 inter-Korean summit, and in September, the timing of the visit was set in the first half of 2001.

by Kim Jin-kook