Clinton Smooths Rift With S. Korean Leader

President Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young Sam appeared Sunday to patch up a dispute that had strained ties between the United States and one of its foremost Pacific allies, but they failed to agree on ways to restart stalled initiatives aimed at bringing peace to the Korean peninsula.

A statement issued by the two leaders after the meeting papered over differences on how to revive both a proposal for Korean peninsula peace talks and a complex agreement to halt North Korean efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

“There’s divergence,” summed up a senior administration official. “It’s still very difficult.”

Following the meeting, Clinton traveled to Subic Bay, about 70 miles northwest of here, where early today the 18 leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum opened the informal summit that brought them to the Philippines. They were expected to focus on a proposal to eliminate tariffs worldwide on the $1-trillion information technology industry.

The Clinton-Kim meeting came as South Korea has resisted U.S. efforts to resurrect peace initiatives toward Communist North Korea. Seoul is demanding an apology from its northern neighbor for the incursion of a spy submarine that ran aground on the South Korean coast in September, setting off a bloody manhunt that left more than two dozen soldiers and civilians from both sides dead.

The United States also has called for an apology. But it wants to revive the nuclear agreement, which promises North Korea two nuclear power stations and oil supplies in exchange for ending its nuclear weapons program. Washington also wants to revive a proposal for talks between the U.S., China and the two Koreas to bring a formal end to the Korean War.

Clinton’s strong condemnation of the North’s actions, however, did manage to smooth over the rift in U.S. relations with Seoul stemming from the submarine incident, according to aides.

Initial U.S. calls for the North and South to use “mutual restraint” in the wake of that incident stunned South Koreans, who felt that their biggest ally was suddenly equating them with their enemy.

“The point is that this meeting did underline the solidarity of the alliance,” Winston Lord, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told reporters.

The Kim meeting was one of four one-to-one sessions Clinton had with Asian leaders in a hectic day of personal diplomacy that has become a major part of APEC meetings. The forum brings together leaders of 18 Pacific Rim governments, giving them the opportunity to meet both individually and as a group.

Earlier Sunday, Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin announced an exchange of Sino-U.S. summits that will take place over the next two years. Clinton also paid a brief courtesy call on Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos and talked with Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto about trade issues and reducing the visibility of the U.S. military presence on Okinawa, the southern island that is home to most of the U.S. troops in Japan.

During Sunday’s Clinton-Kim meeting, the South Korean president “repeatedly underscored the need for a North Korean apology [for the submarine incident] as well as assurances that such an act will not be repeated,” a South Korean official traveling with Kim said. Otherwise, he said, “it would be difficult to convince the nation and the National Assembly to agree to proceed” with the nuclear deal.

South Korea agreed to help finance the North’s nuclear energy effort as part of a 1994 accord that was hailed as bringing an end to one of the world’s most serious threats of nuclear proliferation.

But Kim stressed in his talks with Clinton that “it is realistically difficult to send engineers to the North to carry out the light-water nuclear reactor project because their safety is not assured,” the South Korean official said.

Lord, asked about such concerns, said that “any South Koreans going north would have to be assured of their safety before you would expect them to go.”

“But that’s not the only aspect of moving ahead” with the nuclear deal, Lord added.

In his talks with Jiang, Clinton won backing for proposed four-party talks to negotiate a formal end to the Korean War more than four decades after a cease-fire ended the fighting on the peninsula. China’s support could help nudge North Korea toward the negotiating table.

In a reflection of the high level of concern about events unfolding on the Korean peninsula, Clinton’s 45-minute meeting with Japan’s Hashimoto also began with a discussion of the Korean nuclear deal, which Japan is helping to finance, and the proposed four-party talks.

Clinton and Hashimoto underscored the need for Tokyo, Washington and Seoul to stick together in their dealings with the North.

The two leaders also expressed “mutual determination” to conclude discussions about the future of the U.S. military presence on Okinawa, Lord said. Those talks are aimed at reducing irritations caused by U.S. military activities, in part by returning some land to Japanese control without reducing the strength of U.S. military capabilities in the region.

Particular emphasis was placed on finding alternative facilities so that Futenma Marine Corps Air Station can be returned to Japanese control, Japanese Foreign Ministry official Tadamichi Yamamoto said. Noise from Futenma has been a source of aggravation to Okinawans. Defense Secretary William J. Perry will visit Tokyo next week in a bid to bring the Okinawa talks to a conclusion, Lord said.

The U.S.-Japan economic relationship was also “a very important part” of the Clinton-Hashimoto meeting, Lord said.

“The president made the point that we’ve got to have a solid economic relationship because this is one of the underpinnings of the overall strategic relationship with Japan, which, in turn, is crucial for the region and the world,” Lord said.

Clinton stressed the need to settle a dispute over foreign access to the Japanese insurance market by an agreed-upon deadline of Dec. 15, Lord said. Clinton also mentioned the importance of civil aviation talks, in which the United States is pressing Japan to agree to more open international competition.

In today’s APEC session, Clinton planned to lobby his colleagues to place a deadline of the year 2000 on the proposal to end tariffs in the information technology industry, White House officials said. The plan already was approved in principle--but without a deadline--by trade ministers of the 18 governments meeting here Saturday.

If the other leaders agree, the proposal could lead to the elimination of import duties on everything from telephone cables to microchips in an industry where roughly half of everything produced is exported. U.S officials estimated that global trade in this sector last year was worth $500 billion, with this figure expected to jump to $800 billion by 2000.

U.S. officials hope to use any commitment from APEC leaders as a springboard for winning a global elimination of these tariffs at a meeting of the World Trade Organization in Singapore next month.