US Offers N.Korea "New Road for Better Ties"


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Saturday May 29 5:54 AM ET
   
U.S. Offers North Korea New Road For Better Ties

By Bill Tarrant
   
SEOUL (Reuters) - The United States could offer a major expansion in ties
with North Korea if the secretive communist state abandoned its nuclear and
missile programs, U.S. presidential envoy William Perry said Saturday.

During a four-day visit to North Korea this week, Perry said he had explored
with Pyongyang ``my thinking about the possibility of a major expansion in
our relations and cooperation as part of a process in which the U.S. and
allied concerns about missile and nuclear programs are addressed.''

Perry declined to give details about what was on offer, saying the ideas
about an expanded relationship had been developed over the past six months,
after he was appointed by President Clinton to comprehensively review North
Korean policy.

``For that reason, it is not surprising that I do not have for you at this
time anything that I might characterize as a definitive DPRK (North Korea)
response to this idea,'' Perry said, adding he had not been in Pyongyang to
negotiate.

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung told Reuters last week North Korea would
be offered security guarantees, aid and diplomatic benefits if it agreed to
stop developing and exporting ballistic missiles, abide by an earlier
agreement to end its nuclear ambitions, and reduce tensions on the
peninsula.

Perry described his talks with the North Korean leadership as ``very
intensive, extremely substantive and quite valuable in providing me with
insights to the DPRK thinking on key issues and concerns.''

``In the coming few weeks I plan to complete my policy review and convey my
conclusions directly to the president,'' he said.

Perry briefed South Korean and Japanese officials in Seoul about his
landmark visit -- the highest ranking U.S. delegation to visit North Korea
since the 1950-53 Korean War -- before flying back to Washington Saturday.

The former defense secretary did not see North Korea's reclusive leader Kim
Jong-il. But he met other top officials on a trip that was given unusual
publicity by North Korea's propaganda machine.

``A key goal...in this visit was for us to establish meaningful
relationships with a wide range of senior DPRK officials with direct links
to the DPRK's leader and to convey clearly and firmly the views of the U.S.
and allies,'' Perry said.

``I have no doubt that goal was achieved.''

Domestic critics of the Clinton administration say the United States is
spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on humanitarian aid to North
Korea while getting no concessions on tension reduction in the Korean
peninsula or on North Korea's development and sale of ballistic missiles.

North Korea stunned the world by firing a rocket over Japan last August. The
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency said Pyongyang is now the world's leading
exporter of ballistic missiles.

Kim Jong-il, North Korea's supreme military commander, traveled to the front
line after Perry left Friday.

Accompanied by top officials of the Korean Peoples Army supreme command, Kim
climbed to the forward command post of the 4th Infantry Division to survey
``enemy positions.''

More than two million troops and thousands of artillery tubes are deployed
on either side of the world's most militarized frontier. The two Koreas
remain technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armed
truce.

But in a sign that tensions could ease, a team of U.S. experts found no
reason to believe at this stage that an underground building site in North
Korea violated a 1994 agreement between Washington and Pyongyang, the State
Department said.

Washington demanded access to the site at Kumchang-ri last year to make sure
it did not break the 1994 agreement, in which North Korea froze its nuclear
programs in return for a promise of nuclear power plants and fuel oil.
                                   
        Copyright (c) 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
 
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