Korean Summit Expectations Mixed : Foreign policy: Korean Americans in Los Angeles draw some hope from Jimmy Carter’s effort to defuse nuclear danger, but many remain concerned.

Korean Americans in Los Angeles reacted with a range of emotions Monday to former President Jimmy Carter’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, and the announcement over the weekend that the heads of South Korea and North Korea will hold a summit meeting.

To Steve SungGill Chang, president of the Korean-American Federation of Los Angeles, the latest development was a welcome respite from months of worrying about his homeland because of the standoff between the United States and North Korea over Pyongyang’s suspected efforts to build a nuclear weapon.

“I feel like I can take a little breather now,” said Chang, a native of South Korea. “I don’t trust Kim Il Sung, but I’d like to hope that Carter’s visit has opened a way to begin a dialogue between Kim Il Sung and (South Korean President) Kim Young Sam.”

But to Bong Keon Kim, president of the Los Angeles-based U.S. Federation of Korean Americans From Northern Korea, it is naive to believe that Carter’s efforts or the planned summit of the two leaders will resolve tensions on the Korean peninsula.

“This is Kim Il Sung’s ploy to buy time,” said the federation’s Kim. He said the Clinton Administration should push the United Nations to seek economic sanctions against North Korea as punishment for being an international outlaw.

On Monday, President Clinton, distancing himself from Carter, said the North Korean leader should demonstrate his intentions with action, not words.

Since late last year, when tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear program erupted anew, Koreans in Los Angeles have worried about their homeland and family members still there. An estimated 400,000 people of Korean ancestry live in Southern California--nearly half in Los Angeles--the largest Korean community outside Asia.

Last week, after North Korea threatened to pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 32 Los Angeles-based Korean American civic, business, legal, religious and community organizations formed the Committee for Peace in Korea to offer Korean American perspectives to U.S. policy makers and the news media.

“Korean Americans have no say in U.S. foreign policy (involving Korea) even though we are affected by it,” said Charles Kim, a member of the committee.

It has been difficult for the Committee for Peace in Korea to make itself known to the mainstream. Its inaugural news conference last Friday in Koreatown was canceled because all but one reporter from the mainstream media left after learning about a press conference regarding O.J. Simpson.

“I guess O.J. Simpson and the World Cup are more important to the news media than the fate of more than 70 million Koreans,” said Charles Kim.

The committee rescheduled the conference for Monday morning, only to cancel it again when it learned that Simpson would be arraigned.

Chang, a member of the National Democratic Committee’s Business Leadership Forum, had planned to hand-deliver the group’s “urgent plea” about Korea to President Clinton during a White House reception tonight. But he chose to wait on the letter until he can introduce the committee to the Los Angeles media.

On Friday, during the committee’s news conference with Korean-speaking reporters, committee members said their plea urged Clinton, the presidents of North and South Korea and other world leaders to find a means to resolve the conflict peacefully.

“We represent the collective sentiments of over 1 million Korean Americans nationwide,” said Jerry Yu, executive director of the Korean American Coalition. “We are apprehensive that the current path of U.S. foreign policy toward North Korea could once again bring war to Korea.”

Yu said Monday the weekend developments have not altered his view of U.S. foreign policy.

Charles Kim contends that the Korean peninsula remains divided because of myopic U.S. policy. “To think that Korea is the only country still divided in the post-Cold War era is sad,” he said. “It’s a shame that we have (1.5 million) soldiers facing each other--ready to shoot.”