Koreas to Increase Ties, South’s President Says

SEOUL —  North and South Korean officials will meet later this month to discuss establishment of a military hotline and the first exchanges between the two nations’ armed forces, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung revealed Tuesday.

In a far-ranging interview, Kim predicted that North Korea will inevitably be forced to open up its isolated economy but said reunification of the two Koreas could take 20 to 30 years.

Kim said he expects reunions of families separated by the Korean War to continue beyond the first round of visits of 200 families scheduled to take place in August.

And in an unusually blunt message to the U.S. government, the South Korean president lambasted as discriminatory the agreement that covers the legal status of U.S. armed forces stationed in South Korea. Amid growing public ire over the conduct of some of the 37,000 U.S. personnel stationed in South Korea, Kim said the agreement must be revised quickly to prevent anti-American sentiment from developing.

An American official said Tuesday that the U.S. is prepared to renegotiate anything the South Korean government deems unfair in the so-called Status of Forces Agreement during talks scheduled for early August.

Last month, Kim became the first South Korean president to visit the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. During a three-day summit, he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il signed a landmark five-point agreement pledging economic cooperation and peaceful exchanges aimed at eventual reunification of the peninsula that has been bitterly divided since World War II.

In his interview with The Times, his first with a U.S. news organization since his return, Kim Dae Jung sought to reassure domestic and international skeptics, who see the historic agreement as strong on symbolism but lacking in commitments to reduce the military threat from the Communist North. Kim stressed that he will pursue reconciliation in a gradual and prudent manner.

“I don’t think there are too many people who are so naive as to believe that things will progress relatively easily from this point on, because we have had 55 years of very difficult relations with the North,” Kim said.

However, as the two Korean leaders discussed at the summit, the South Korean president said neither war nor unification by force is an option.

“Peaceful coexistence and exchanges may go on for 20 or 30 years,” he said. “We must not make haste. But in the process, we will be working towards ultimate unification.”

Nevertheless, Kim warned: “We must be careful not to give people the illusion that this is now the time for us to be talking seriously about unification. This is not.”

Kim said that during the summit, he told Kim Jong Il that he believes that U.S. troops must stay even after reunification to preserve stability and the balance of power in Northeast Asia, just as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization continues to guarantee security in Europe even after the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

Kim Dae Jung also said that he insisted that North Korea abide by its pledges to the United States to freeze its nuclear weapons program and to not test-fire its long-range missiles. He urged North Korea to reach a deal with the United States on the issue.

“Chairman Kim did not give an explicit answer to these positions of ours, but he did not display opposition or displeasure at our stance,” Kim said. “So I am not pessimistic. . . . The negotiations may be very difficult, but in the end, they will reach a successful conclusion,” Kim said.

Missile talks between the U.S. and North Korea broke down last week after the North stuck to its long-standing demand that, in exchange for ceasing to export its missiles to clients in the Middle East, Pakistan and elsewhere, the U.S. pay North Korea $3 billion to compensate for lost revenues.

Nevertheless, Kim Jong Il’s diplomatic charm offensive continues, as he seeks to establish ties between what was until recently called the “Hermit Kingdom” and its capitalist former enemies from whom it now seeks trade and investment.

Next week, North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun travels to Bangkok, Thailand, to meet with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. If it comes off, the meeting will be the highest-level negotiation between the U.S. and North Korea since the Korean War ended in 1953.

Among other issues, Pyongyang hopes to persuade Washington to remove North Korea from the U.S. list of terrorist nations. Following the successful North-South summit, the U.S. announced the end to some sanctions on American trade and investment in North Korea, a move that South Korean President Kim had been urging for more than two years.

But other severe U.S. sanctions will not be eased unless the “terrorist” designation is lifted.

Paek will also meet with the Japanese foreign minister in Bangkok, in an effort to restart talks over normalizing diplomatic relations. North Korea wants billions of dollars in reparations for Japan’s wartime colonization, while Japan wants a guarantee that North Korea will not repeat the 1998 launch of a long-range missile that flew over Japan.

While the diplomatic whirl goes on, governments are waiting to see whether the friendly rhetoric and startling bear hugs between the two Kims last month will translate into concrete cooperation.

Ministerial officials from North and South Korea will meet at the end of this month to discuss economic, sport and cultural exchanges, including a visit to Seoul by a northern symphony orchestra, President Kim said Tuesday.

Confidence-building measures between the two militaries, which have the bulk of their 1.8 million soldiers facing off across the demilitarized zone, were not reported to have been discussed at the summit. But Kim said Tuesday that the two sides will discuss measures to reduce tension, including a hotline and military exchanges--ideas that would have seemed impossible prior to the summit.

Also up for discussion are market-style practices seen as essential to attracting private investment in North Korea, including investment guarantees, prevention of double taxation and a settlement procedure for payments.

“By reading North Korea’s reaction to these proposals, we will be able to get a good feel for how ready North Korea is” to open up, Kim said.

The next test of Korean-style glasnost is the August visit of aging families, many of whom had no idea until this week whether their relatives were alive or dead after nearly half a century. In South Korea, where more than 70,000 people have close relatives in the North, the fate of these elderly survivors is emotionally and politically charged.

The two countries’ Red Cross organizations have traded lists of 200 candidates who want to exchange visits. The North’s list was released to the South Korean media, which have been tracking down relatives and printing heart-rending interviews.

As of Tuesday, at least 158 names had been identified by relatives in the South--but only 100 North Koreans will be permitted to come to Seoul in the first round of visits scheduled for Aug. 15. In South Korea, 100 people will be chosen by computer lottery to travel to Pyongyang to meet parents, children, siblings and spouses left behind.

But with so many families hoping for a glimpse of their loved ones, the ranks of the disappointed are legion.

Kim’s comments Tuesday seemed to indicate that a deal for future visits had been struck.

“The other people who have been confirmed [to have living relatives in the North] will be given priority in the ongoing exchanges,” he said. “And there will be further exchanges--in fact, routine exchanges” once the two sides open a meeting center, probably in the demilitarized zone meeting point of Panmunjom.

In exchange for the separated-family visits, the South has agreed to send to North Korea more than 50 Communist spies and sympathizers who have been released from prison after serving decades-long prison sentences.

Kim said the spies would be repatriated in early September, and preparations for the family reunion center would then begin.

The South Korean president, a longtime dissident who spent more than 10 years in prison and under house arrest during South Korea’s military dictatorships, has come under pressure at home to address the fate of at least 454 South Koreans being held in the North.

According to the South’s National Intelligence Service, 231 of these are Korean War prisoners of war who were never repatriated by the North. The rest are South Korean fishermen who drifted North and disappeared, prominent South Koreans believed to have been abducted by North Korean agents overseas, and the crew of a Korean Airlines plane that was hijacked to the North more than three decades ago.

Asked whether he had pleaded for their release in Pyongyang, Kim said the issue had been raised at an unofficial level. “This is a humanitarian issue, and therefore it can be solved,” he added.

Many of the North Koreans selected for the visit are already well known in their former hometowns in the South. Many are people who volunteered to fight for North Korea and never came home. Some are known defectors, and at least nine are famous artists, performers, scientists and scholars.

“Reading the list of names, I have the feeling that many of them have been sent to South Korea before--as agents,” said one South Korean source with access to intelligence.

Though the northern visitors have surely been selected for their loyalty to the regime, the source added, it is vital to South Korea that none of them try to defect, lest they endanger future exchanges.

“We cannot put this out in public, but somehow we must let them have the idea that this is no time to defect,” the source said. But it could be a tough sell for people whose private lives have been torn asunder by the cruelties of geopolitics. One elderly woman told the South Korean press that she wants the son she lost half a century ago to come home at last--and stay.

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Read excerpts of the interview with President Kim Dae Jung on The Times’ Web site at: https://www.latimes.com/koreansummit.