Korea, U.S. seek means to lure North

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Korea, U.S. seek means to lure North

South Korea and the United States have agreed to build mechanisms for inter-Korean military trust before pressing North Korea to withdraw conventional forces from the border area.

"The Ministry of National Defense and the commanding headquarters of the United States Forces Korea have had in-depth discussions about the North Korean conventional forces threatening the South since last year," a top government source said Thursday. "They agreed to build up military trust with the North first and then proceed to arms control, arms cuts and a peace treaty."

The United States in recent months had appeared to identify North Korea's conventional forces as its principal concern, but it now appears that urging Pyeongyang to scale back its deployment will be postponed until the arms control phase of negotiations.

Seoul and Washington agreed to work as equals on the North's conventional forces, the sources said. Seoul apparently abandoned its earlier stance, expressed at the annual Security Council Meeting in Washington last year, that it should take the lead on this issue.

After the Kim-Bush summit Wednesday, Seoul's foreign affairs and national security bureaus are focusing on ways to resume dialogue with the North and improve the negotiating atmosphere, a Blue House official said. Seoul hopes that U.S. pressure may bring Pyeongyang out of its closet. "When Washington was considering a raid on the North in 1994, Pyeongyang agreed to an inter-Korean summit," said a Unification Ministry official.

Seoul will set a tone for dialogue by means of food assistance; the government will send 100,000 tons of corn to the North next week through the World Food Program. It has offered 300,000 tons of rice and fertilizer as bait for a new economic cooperation committee meeting. It will also urge the North to reschedule the suspended reunion of separated families, anticipating that Mr. Bush's expressed interest in that issue may move Pyeongyang.

Jack Pritchard, U.S. special envoy on Korean affairs, and Michael Green of the National Security Council stayed in Seoul after Mr. Bush's departure to fine-tune the program to draw the North to negotiation table. Mr. Bush, now in Beijing, asked help from the Chinese government in resuming talks with Pyeongyang.

by Kim Min-seok

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