S. Korea, U.S., Japan to discuss N. Korea

A meeting of the foreign ministers of South Korea, the United States and Japan in Seoul has been called at the request of the Seoul government to assess the results of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's trip to Pyongyang and coordinate their policies toward North Korea.

Similar tripartite policy consultation talks used to be attended by lower officials of assistant secretary level. The current session signifies the gravity of Albright's encounter with North Korean officials and its consequences on the future of evolving relationships between Pyongyang and Washington, Pyongyang and Tokyo and the two Koreas. The dazzling changes taking place on the Korean peninsula necessitate a reinvention of their common framework and strategies for dealing with North Korea.

The Seoul meeting is expected to cover the content of the important headway made in North Korea's missile problem as disclosed by Secretary Albright at a press conference Tuesday and the policy response of the three governments. Seoul officials speculate that progress in the most sensitive dispute over missiles must have been made in tandem with substantive negotiations on such other issues as terrorism and the outcome of the progress will decide President Bill Clinton's proposed visit to North Korea.

It was likely that Pyongyang demanded a concrete reward for its halt to testing of missiles and restrictions on their export. A possible shift in the missile issue is one of the major subjects of the Seoul meeting. As was the case with the Korea Energy Development Organization created to settle the hassle over North Korean nuclear weapons program, Washington will seek to share the cost of reward among the three countries.

Thus, a significant move ahead toward the resolution of the North's missile development problem will probably present a bone of contention over cost sharing among the three nations.

At the tripartite conference South Korean government will like concentrate on emphasizing the central role of the two Koreas in the settlement of the Korean question and that an advance in inter-Korean rapprochement now in a lull is essential to steady improvement of Pyongyang's ties with Washington and Tokyo.

Boo Hyung-Kwon bookum90@donga.com