South Korea-North Korea-U.S. Stride On Chain Contacts

Deputy US Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, clarified the US`s plan to resume dialogues between the North Korea and the US and the US’s support for Seoul`s `engagement policy.` Since chain contacts among South Korea, North Korea, and the US are already scheduled from mid May through June, dialogues between the South and the North and North Korea and the US are expected to resumed soon.

Relevant authorities from the three countries will meet at the Supreme Official Meeting (SOM) of the 8th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which is scheduled to be held in Hanoi, Vietnam, on May 17 and 18. The official authorities, who will participate in the meeting, are Choi Young-Jin, deputy minister for policy planning and international organizations at the South’s Foreign Ministry Ri Yong-Ho, councilor in charge of confidence building measures at the North`s Foreign Ministry, James Kelly, assistant secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs.

Han Seung-Soo, minister of the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry, will be tuning the North Korean policies with the US when he visits Washington in early June. Colin Powell, minister of the US secretary of State, is also planning to visit Seoul in July. In addition, the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) meeting of the South, the US and Japan will be held late this month.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Dong-Shin will meet with the US Defense Minister Donald Rumsfeld to discuss about the plans to strengthen the Korea-US alliance in terms of the new North Korean polices of the Bush administration.

Before completing the review of its policies related with North Korea, the US will have a non-official meeting with the North Korea at the SOM of ARF in Hanoi to gauge the response of North Korea about the US’s MD project and the reopening of the North-US dialogue.

A government official said that presently there is no official meeting that is scheduled. Nevertheless, he expects extemporaneous meetings during the SOM period in Hanoi.

However, chances are very high that the US has to confront aggressive oppositions to its MD plan from other members of ASEAN, including Russia and China. The pending problem of this SOM meeting is to establish a plan to develop the `preventive diplomacy` to reduce the conflicts and disputes in the area of ASEAN countries.

ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which was founded from the matrix of ASEAN`s expanded foreign ministers council (PMC) of ARF in 1994, is the only multiple security consultative council in this area. Twenty three countries including the South, the North, the US, Russia, and China participate in ARF. North Korea joined this Forum last year.

Kim Young-Sik spear@donga.com