hankyoreh

President Roh Moo-hyun has unveiled a road map that involves a four-party summit, and a declaration to end the Korean War and establish a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. It seems that Roh has properly expressed his intention concerning the justifiability of a four-nation summit of the two Koreas, the United States and China. Roh has not specified a timetable for the summit, but the sooner, the better.

The road map revealed by President Roh at a keynote speech to an symposium sponsored by The Hankyoreh and the city of Busan on November 12 is considered a decisive milestone to achieving the denuclearization of North Korea and a peace agreement. As he has mentioned in the past, Washington has demanded “nuclear dismantlement first, followed by the establishment of a peace regime,” while Pyongyang has maintained that the peace regime should be established first. Under these circumstances, the leverage provided by a four-party declaration is necessary in order to simultaneously accomplish the two tasks.

A summit between the four parties is an essential first step toward making the declaration. There can be no replacement for dialogue via a multi-party forum and the meeting place should naturally be located on the peninsula, which is the main stage on which peace will be established. President Roh and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-il agreed to hold a three- or four-party summit on the peninsula at the second inter-Korean summit which took place at the beginning of last month.

The participants of the six-nation talks are making a concerted effort to complete North Korea’s nuclear disablement. Most importantly, however, the North should faithfully report on the disablement process and the United States should remove the communist nation from its list of states supporting terrorism. Japan should also adopt more forward-looking policies toward this end.

However, none of these efforts will be sufficient in allowing the North to implement the next step of abandoning its nuclear facilities because neither Pyongyang nor Washington trusts the other deeply enough to take the initiative and make the first move. The Bush administration, in particular, has repeatedly stressed the importance of normalizing relations with North Korea but hasn’t taken a big step toward this goal due to the fact that some hardliners are opposed to talks between the two nations and want the North to first dismantle its nuclear weapon program before any other steps can be taken. This irresponsible attitude works to negate the results of the six-party talks, while returning to the confrontation of the past.

Though the impact of the security issue on the upcoming presidential election is considered to be minor. several of the candidates have maintained factional positions over the North’s nuclear weapons program and South-North relations. To resolve the North Korean nuclear issue and to establish a peace regime are national tasks to be achieved no matter who will rule the nation. The four-party summit should be considered within the same context.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]