- BEIJING (Reuters) - A South
Korean envoy arrived in China Wednesday to urge North Korea's chief ally
to put more pressure on the reclusive communist state to stop its nuclear
weapons program.
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- Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae-shik flew into Beijing
-- after President Bush said Washington and Pyongyang were engaged in "a
diplomatic showdown...not a military showdown" -- and pledged to work
for a peaceful settlement to the dispute.
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- But North Korea kept the rhetorical fires burning, calling
on its people to build "a powerful nation" under its "army-based
policy" and urging South Koreans to join in resisting the United States.
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- Lee's visit is part of a flurry of diplomacy aimed at
warding off a crisis over North Korea, which Bush has designated part of
an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran.
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- Lee, who is scheduled to meet Chinese Vice Foreign Minister
Wang Yi Thursday, told Reuters television he planned "to exchange
our views with Chinese officials on how to find a constructive way out
of this nuclear stalemate."
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- Diplomats said Lee was expected to urge communist China,
an ally that has given impoverished North Korea substantial economic aid,
to play a more active role in ending the standoff.
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- North Korea, accused by Washington of secretly developing
nuclear arms, has started reactivating a complex capable of producing weapons-grade
plutonium and has expelled U.N. inspectors monitoring it.
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- The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency,
whose inspectors left North Korea Tuesday, said the inspectors would submit
a report to the agency's board on January 6.
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- One of the two, Demirdjian Missak, told reporters on
his arrival in Vienna from Beijing on Wednesday: "We hope of course
to go back as soon as possible." He declined comment on the inspections
but said he would report to his boss Thursday.
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- Pyongyang is demanding direct talks with Washington and
a non-aggression pact to defuse the crisis. Washington has rejected the
idea, saying it will not reward bad behavior.
-
- But Bush, chatting with reporters Tuesday at a coffee
shop in Crawford, Texas near his family ranch, suggested that, unlike with
Iraq, force was not under consideration.
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- "I view the North Korean situation as one that can
be resolved peacefully through diplomacy," he said, adding Washington
would work with its allies and North Korea's neighbors to persuade Pyongyang
to scrap its nuclear program.
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- China, which fought alongside the North during the 1950-53
Korean War, has so far balanced a call for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula
with support for dialogue to end the standoff.
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- DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION
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- In South Korea, outgoing President Kim Dae-jung spoke
of an opportunity to sow the seeds of a peace that eluded the peninsula
at the end of the Korean War.
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- "We can help resolve the North Korean nuclear problem
and make peace take root on the Korean peninsula," he said in his
final New Year message before he steps down in February.
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- North Korea's official Workers Daily, alluding to the
recent upsurge in South Korean protests against the 37,000 U.S. troops
stationed in the South, urged North and South Koreans in a New Year editorial
to resist "the reckless and vicious war moves of the U.S. imperialists...and
deal a telling blow at them."
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- "It can be said that there exists only confrontation
between the Korean nation in the North and the South and the United States
on the Korean peninsula at present," it said.
-
- A full half-century after the Korean War ended in a tense
truce, North and South Korea remain technically at war, separated by a
sealed border bristling with weapons.
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- Kim won a Nobel Peace Prize for his "sunshine policy"
of reconciliation with South Korea's unpredictable neighbor, which accuses
Washington of trying to topple its political system. President-elect Roh
Moo-hyun, who backs Kim's policy and takes office on Feb. 25, said in a
speech that "dialogue and compromise" could resolve the standoff.
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- South Korea's vice-minister of foreign affairs, Kim Hang-kyung,
is due to travel to Moscow for talks next week.
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- The United States said after talks with the North in
October that Pyongyang had admitted pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program
in direct breach of its 1994 oil-for-compliance agreement with Washington.
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- Pak Ui Chun, the North's ambassador to Moscow, gave a
new twist to the crisis Tuesday when he said Pyongyang could not meet its
obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty because of nuclear
threats by Washington. The North signed the treaty in 1985.
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- Secretary of State Colin Powell has said Washington will
not launch a pre-emptive attack on North Korea over the nuclear arms issue.
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- U.S. officials are pushing a "tailored containment"
strategy of increasing diplomatic and economic pressure, including stopping
North Korean missile exports by intercepting them at sea.
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