Tiff over conventional arms?

In what could be a sign of pre-summit jockeying for position, a government official said Sunday that measures to induce North Korea to move its conventional weapons back from its forward positions would not be discussed at the Korea-U.S. summit on Wednesday, despite Mr. Bush's emphasis on that point in an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo and other reporters on Friday in Washington.

"These issues should be discussed at the working level talks," said the government staffer, who asked that his name not be used. He added that officials from Seoul and Washington have outlined the first draft of measures to build mutual confidence on the peninsula.

"Washington has made clear that Pyeongyang's disarmament of its conventional weapons is not a precondition for reopening talks between the two nations," he added.

The Korean government Sunday began to beef up security and fine-tuned the outline of discussions between President Kim Dae-jung and U.S. President George W. Bush. Mr. Bush arrived at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Sunday afternoon, the first stop on his six-day tour of Japan, South Korea and China.

He will arrive in Korea Tuesday and will meet with President Kim Dae-jung on Wednesday. North Korea's weaponry, conventional and nonconventional, is expected to be the major topic of discussion.

The Blue House s and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade went on round-the-clock duty Sunday, putting the final touches on the points President Kim will say during the meeting; an official said they are preparing talking points for the president on the weapons issue despite the confidence they project about its absence from the agenda.

On Saturday, Mr. Bush visited Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, where he told a cheering crowd of airmen, "America will not blink" from the fight against terrorism. He vowed to take that message to Asia and said he will continue to press the countries that he has called the "axis of evil" to change their ways.

Before he left Washington, President Bush said Friday that the United States is willing trade with Pyeongyang if it withdraws its conventional weapons from the Demilitarized Zone area. (Interview excerpts are on Page 3.) President Bush, accompanied by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, said that he was concerned over the massive firepower the North has trained on Seoul. Conventional weapons, he said, are a "local issue" that are as important as Pyeongyang's missile proliferation. He ducked, however, a question about just what kinds of economic exchanges Washington would be willing to enter into in return for a pullback.

Mr. Bush said he supported President Kim's engagement policy toward the North, but complained that Pyeongyang had ignored those efforts. He said he would stress to Mr. Kim that the proliferation of mass weapons must end.

by Oh Young-hwan