23 Ministers Call For New Summit

HANOI － Foreign ministers from 23 countries, meeting with the Association of South East Asian Nations, adopted a statement on Wednesday advocating a second summit meeting between the two Koreas.

The statement expressed satisfaction over positive developments on the Korean Peninsula after the inter-Korean summit meeting last year and recommended that the two Koreas continue their peace process based on the success of the first summit.

It also emphasized the importance of a second summit meeting for the permanent establishment of peace on the peninsula. There was, however, no breakthrough in contacts between North Korea and South Korea or the United States.

"They seem to have come to Hanoi without any official instruction or guiding principle," the South Korean delegation said of the North Korean delegation, which included Ho Jong, roving ambassador.

The North Korean delegation kept silent or spoke only ceremonially at meetings. Contacts between Mr. Ho and the South Korean foreign minister, Han Seung-soo, on Tuesday at an unofficial dinner and Wednesday during a foreign ministerial meeting, were also confined to ceremonial greetings.

Talks between Pyongyang and Seoul or Washington are therefore not likely to resume soon, experts said.

No changes were noticeable in the North's position other than an annual report on security prospects, in which Pyongyang accused Washington of pursuing antagonistic policies that it claimed could set the Korean Peninsula back to before the 1994 Geneva Agreement. The report, however, refrained from criticizing Seoul.

Meanwhile, Mr. Han and his Japanese counterpart, Makiko Tanaka, could not narrow differences Wednesday on what South Korea claims are distorted history textbooks.

Mr. Han said to Ms. Tanaka, "If young people who must lead the future do not know history, it would obstruct friendly and cooperative bilateral relations. Distortion in textbooks is not a question of the past, but of the future."

Mr. Han asked for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan to refrain from visiting the Yasukuni shrine to Japan's war dead, and for the minister to officially request that the shrine delete the names of 21,000 or so Korean victims from the list of those honored.

"We can review the history textbook issue after August 15," Ms. Tanaka reportedly replied. That is the date of Mr. Koizumi's planned visit to Yasukuni. She also noted that separation of religion and state prevents the government from telling the shrine what to do.

On the dispute over Korean fishing rights in waters surrounding the southern Kuril Islands, Ms. Tanaka continued to demand that South Korean fishermen halt their activities in what she said are Japanese waters.

by Lee Chul-hee