Powell, S. Korea Leader Meet

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met Tuesday with newly inaugurated South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun in what both sides said was a successful effort to patch up months of tension and misunderstandings between the U.S. and one of its closest allies.

Powell said Roh had agreed to the American position that countries most threatened by North Korea’s nuclear ambitions should take part in multilateral talks to resolve the problem. Roh, who wants those talks held soon, and many other Asian leaders had been calling on Washington to talk directly with the North, an approach the Bush administration has rejected.

“I’ve achieved what I wanted on the trip,” Powell told reporters aboard his plane as he headed back to Washington after attending Roh’s inauguration in Seoul earlier in the day and visiting Tokyo and Beijing over the weekend.

“It went very well,” said a senior aide to Roh who requested anonymity. “There was no disagreement, let alone argument, in large areas.”

Powell and South Korean officials brushed off the significance of North Korea’s test-firing during inauguration day of a short-range missile, which landed in the Sea of Japan off the east coast of the Korean peninsula. It was the first such launch in three years, but the senior Roh aide said South Korean military officials considered it “nothing new” and Powell called it a “fairly innocuous kind of test.”

Many in Asia disagreed. South Korea’s benchmark stock market index fell 3.9%, followed by declines in other Asian markets. Calls for restraint poured in from China, Australia, Indonesia and elsewhere.

There were conflicting analyses on what kind of missile was fired. Defense analysts here said that the short-range missile is an old model, which is not ordinarily in need of testing. Unlike the multistage Taepodong 1 missile that North Korean shot over Japan in 1998, this missile has too short a range -- about 50 miles -- to reach Japan. But it could easily reach U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.

In his meetings with Roh, Powell said he promised close consultations, transparency and “no surprises” on issues related to Asia policy. Previous South Korean presidents have longed for but seldom received such assurances from Washington.

Roh called for equality in bilateral relations, a theme the former activist has been stressing as he charts a more independent course for his nation. At the same time, Roh sought to dispel the anti-American image he garnered during his election campaign, telling Powell that “I like and respect the United States,” a senior U.S. official said.

The 56-year-old president had been in his new office less than two hours when he received Powell, and aides had to show him where to stand and to shake hands. There was little opportunity in the hourlong meeting to tackle the substance of the U.S.-South Korea disagreements, other than to get the relationship back on a better footing.

Powell headed home from his five-day Asia tour without a pledge from China either to vote for or at least not veto a U.S.-sponsored resolution before the U.N. Security Council declaring Iraq in material breach of its commitments to disarm. The Chinese leadership has sided with France in insisting on more time for weapons inspections.

Powell said he had no illusions about China’s views but made his case to the leadership and had not given up trying to convince the government to support the U.S.-backed resolution.

Powell used his overnight visit to Seoul not only to try to repair the U.S.-South Korean alliance, which has been frayed by disagreements over the North Korea crisis and concerns about the role of 38,000 U.S. troops stationed here, but also to try to explain the American position on Iraq to a skeptical public here.

In contrast to the anti-American mood that had swept South Korea in recent months, demonstrations were at a minimum during his visit.

The chief U.S. diplomat scored points with the new South Korean government by announcing a package of 44,000 tons of food aid for North Korea. The U.S. may contribute an additional 66,000 tons to the World Food Program later this year.

Powell used his visit to repeat an unmistakable warning to North Korea not to begin reprocessing spent plutonium fuel rods stored at its Yongbyon facility.

Satellite surveillance recently picked up truck movements at Yongbyon, spurring worries that the North had begun harvesting nuclear material from the rods. But Powell said all the available evidence suggests that the reprocessing has not yet started. He said the U.S. and other nations “have made clear that if [the North Koreans] begin reprocessing, that changes the whole political landscape.”

North Korea agreed in the early 1990s to end its nuclear program but acknowledged last fall that it was reprocessing uranium. The Bush administration has not said how it would respond should North Korea begin to reprocess plutonium, but the U.S. has not ruled out any options, including the use of force. Roh opposes the use of military force.

The administration is deferring to its allies in proceeding patiently in search of a diplomatic solution with North Korea. But it has aggravated critics at home, including some Democratic senators, by refusing to term the situation “a crisis” or make haste to the negotiating table to prevent North Korea from building perhaps six nuclear bombs in as little as six months.

“There’s a sense of urgency but not a sense of panic,” Powell said, noting that Pyongyang has long been capable of reprocessing plutonium within a few weeks.

Critics have argued that by insisting on multilateral talks, when the North Koreans have said they will accept only direct talks with Washington, the Bush administration is stalling for time while it deals with Iraq. Powell rejected that.

“We’re constantly accused of being unilateral. Now we’re being accused of being multilateral,” he said on the flight home.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld made the same point in an appearance Tuesday at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank in Washington. It would be “unproductive for the United States to negotiate bilaterally with North Korea, rather than coordinating with Japan, South Korea, China and Russia,” he said.

“It isn’t something that’s bilateral,” he said. “It’s a worldwide problem.”

*

Times staff writers Paul Richter and John Hendren in Washington contributed to this report.

*

A new leader

Here are some facts about President Roh Moo Hyun:

Education: Roh was born in the town of Kimhae, near Pusan. He attended only high school but managed to teach himself enough law to pass the bar exam.

Career: After gaining a reputation as a firebrand human rights attorney, Roh served two stints in South Korea’s National Assembly and later was minister for maritime affairs and fisheries.

Family: Roh, 56, is married to Kwon Yang Sook, his childhood sweetheart. They have a son and a daughter. Roh says he enjoys mountain climbing and bowling. Quote: “I’m not a man of dogma or ideology. You have to make concessions as a responsible politician. If your are too principled, it is not possible to govern. The main principle you have to respect is never to lie.”

Source: Los Angeles Times, BBC News