If You’re Going, Guess I Will, Too : Pyongyang and Seoul to join U.N.; a warming?

Until the late 19th Century the Western world knew Korea as the Hermit Kingdom, a shadowy land whose rulers shunned nearly all contacts with the world outside. Modern South Korea, a major trading nation, has long since eagerly sought expanded international relations. By contrast North Korea, ruled for more than 40 years by the Stalinist Kim Il Sung, clings to isolationism, sealing its people off from outside influences as one means of maintaining a rigorous ideological control. No one, including the most vigilant Pyongyang-watchers in Seoul, expected to see this change during Kim’s lifetime. But suddenly the possibility of change is in the air, as a palpably resentful North Korea is being compelled to accept that its long self-quarantine may soon have to end.

Next September, North Korea will be granted membership in the United Nations. South Korea will be admitted at the same time. Until now, both countries, which share a peninsula left ideologically divided at the end of World War II, held only non-voting U.N. observer status. North Korea has not tried to hide its unhappiness over the honor it’s about to receive.

Since the end of the Korean War in 1953 Pyongyang has claimed to be the sole legitimate government of all Korea, bitterly denouncing every fresh instance of international recognition of South Korea’s legitimacy, including the awarding of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games to Seoul. The north’s position was long supported by the Soviet Union, whose U.N. veto barred the Seoul government from membership. But North Korea’s protectors have finally grown weary of this game. The Soviet Union, and China to a lesser extent, have let it be known that their interests, especially in the areas of expanded commerce with South Korea, will no longer be held hostage to North Korea’s tiresome ideological claims. Pyongyang, recognizing that Seoul’s U.N. application won’t be vetoed this fall, had no choice but to say it would apply as well.

Taking a seat in the General Assembly won’t by itself lead Kim Il Sung to abandon his support for international terrorism, or give up his dream of one day bringing all of Korea under his authority. But it could expose Pyongyang to greater pressures--linked, subtly or not so subtly, to providing North Korea with some desperately needed economic aid--to allow international inspection of its increasingly worrisome nuclear weapons program.

Growing evidence indicates that North Korea is close to producing weapons-grade nuclear fuel. Such weapons would be seen by both South Korea and Japan as overt threats to their security. If nothing else, bringing North Korea inside the U.N. tent should expose it more forcefully to deepening international concerns about nuclear proliferation. But time is growing short; some experts think Pyongyang could be nuclear-capable in as few as three to five years. That’s ominous. So are the recent hints from Seoul that South Korea may not wait for that to happen before deciding to act preemptively to curb the perceived threat to its security.