Word: roh
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South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun will make his first trip to America next week. It's not likely to be a happy introduction to the joys of Stateside travel. The highlight of his itinerary is a summit with President George W. Bush, during which they must try to hammer out a mutually agreeable strategy for defusing the North Korean nuclear threat. Although Roh and Bush may get along fine personally?both are plainspoken men who quickly get to the point?they are poles apart on how to convince North Korea to scrap its nuclear program...
...Roh was elected last December on a nationalistic platform that positioned South Korea not as a subservient U.S. ally but as a proudly independent player, determined to mollify North Korea through economic and diplomatic engagement. But Roh's "Peace and Prosperity Policy" toward the North won't play well in the post-Iraq war White House, where hard-liners are deeply skeptical that bargaining with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will be any more fruitful than bargaining with Saddam Hussein?a suspicion confirmed late last month when talks between the U.S. and North Korea in Beijing ended acrimoniously...
...North Korea warned last week that it would consider sanctions "the green light to a war." And South Korea, which faces Kim's artillery batteries across the Demilitarized Zone, has long argued against provoking the North by playing tough. Might Roh finally relent, joining Bush in a bid to sever the North's financial lifelines? Not likely, says Chuck Downs, author of Over the Line, a study of North Korea's negotiating tactics, "Their ace in the hole is South Korean fear...
...which leaves Roh in an awkward position during his White House visit. While campaigning for President, Roh promised to maintain peace on the peninsula at almost any cost, but the North's brinkmanship makes it tougher to argue for dangling carrots instead of wielding sticks. Seoul still wants further discussions and thinks the U.S. might eventually convince Kim to disarm by accepting the North's latest demands for economic assistance. But Washington isn't biting. Even U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, widely seen as relatively moderate, has refused to embrace the North's blueprint. "This proposal is a nonstarter...
...Roh is indeed toughening his stance, he'll have something to talk about with Bush. But if he goes to Washington merely to push for engagement, the visit could be an embarrassing rerun of former President Kim Dae Jung's White House misadventure in 2001. That summit went off the rails when Bush aired his long-standing doubts about negotiating with the North. "If you think President Bush is suddenly going to change his position because of Roh Moo Hyun?that's just not going to happen," says a Bush Administration official...