ID :
51471
Fri, 03/20/2009 - 09:36
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://www.oananews.org//node/51471
The shortlink copeid
Bosworth advised then President Clinton not to visit Pyonyang
By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, March 19 (Yonhap) -- A former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Stephen Bosworth, said he advised then President Bill Clinton not to go to Pyongyang for nuclear and missile talks, because chances of any breakthrough were slim.
"If a summit were going to be held, there should be a reasonable likelihood that
it would lead to a real breakthrough," Bosworth said in a book titled
"Ambassador's Memoir: U.S.-Korea Relations Through the Eyes of the Ambassadors."
"As a practical matter, there was not enough time to lay the negotiating
groundwork, and the administration reluctantly accepted that there could be no
U.S.-DPRK (North Korean) summit."
Bosworth, recently appointed as U.S. President Barack Obama's pointman on North
Korea, was talking about the proposed summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
that was thwarted in late 2000 in Clinton's waning weeks.
Clinton had pledged to visit Pyongyang, following North Korean Marshall Jo
Myong-rok's visit to Washington and a return visit to the North Korean capital by
then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in December 2000.
Clinton recently said he regretted not going to Pyongyang at that time.
Obama has said he intends to meet with Kim Jong-il to try to persuade him to
abandon the North's nuclear ambitions, while continuing to pursue six-party
denuclearization talks.
Bosworth is charged with overseeing the six-party talks as well as the Obama
administration's overall North Korea policy, including a possible Kim-Obama
summit.
Bosworth toured South Korea, China and Japan last month in his first overseas
mission as the U.S. special representative for North Korea, but failed either to
meet with North Korean officials or visit Pyongyang, as North Korea apparently
refused to accept him.
Bosworth's failed attempt to visit Pyongyang came amid escalating tensions in the
Korean Peninsula over North Korea's imminent launch of a satellite, which the
U.S. sees as a cover for test-firing a ballistic missile capable of reaching the
continental U.S.
The multilateral nuclear talks are also stalled over North Korea's refusal in the
latest round of talks in December to accept a verification regime for its nuclear
facilities.
Bosworth said he was asked by Washington in mid-December in 2000 "for my views."
"I cautioned that a presidential visit to North Korea should be the culmination
of a successful diplomatic process," he said. "In the arsenal of U.S. diplomacy,
a presidential visit to North Korea would be the heavy artillery."
The former top U.S. diplomat in Seoul said the high-level exchanges between North
Korea and the U.S. in Clinton's waning months were prompted by North Korea's 1998
test-firing of a three-stage rocket to launch a satellite.
The Clinton administration had been "left with a de facto, if undeclared, policy
of waiting for North Korea to collapse while hoping that the Agreed Framework
would keep the nuclear genie in the bottle," Bosworth said. "The provisions of
the 1994 Agreed Framework that provided for political engagement between
Washington and Pyongyang and movement toward a more normal relationship were put
aside."
The 1994 nuclear deal calls for the freezing of North Korea's nuclear facilities
in return for building of two light-water reactors, less likely to be used for
production of weapons-grade plutonium. The deal also includes provision of heavy
fuel oil to North Korea and other economic and political benefits, including
normalization of relations between the former foes of the 1950-53 Korean War.
"Under pressure from the public and the Congress, the Clinton administration
scrambled to come up with a coherent response to the missile launch," he said,
noting that the North's underlying message in the missile launch was "if we
thought North Korea could simply be ignored and left to fade into eventual
collapse, we should think again."
Bosworth's remarks are similar to those of other experts recently on North
Korea's announcement that it will launch another rocket in early April to put a
communications satellite into orbit - that Kim Jong-il wants to woo Obama's
attention while the new U.S. president is formulating his North Korea policy.
U.S. and its allies are threatening to impose further sanctions if the North
pushes ahead with the launch, but China, the North's staunchest communist ally,
and Russia have not been clear on whether they will join in.
North Korea says it has the right to launch a satellite as part of its space
program, threatening to retaliate if the U.S. tries to shoot down the rocket.
U.S. officials have talked about a possible interception of the rocket amid
conflicting reports about U.S. capability to intercept missiles approaching from
North Korea.
WASHINGTON, March 19 (Yonhap) -- A former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Stephen Bosworth, said he advised then President Bill Clinton not to go to Pyongyang for nuclear and missile talks, because chances of any breakthrough were slim.
"If a summit were going to be held, there should be a reasonable likelihood that
it would lead to a real breakthrough," Bosworth said in a book titled
"Ambassador's Memoir: U.S.-Korea Relations Through the Eyes of the Ambassadors."
"As a practical matter, there was not enough time to lay the negotiating
groundwork, and the administration reluctantly accepted that there could be no
U.S.-DPRK (North Korean) summit."
Bosworth, recently appointed as U.S. President Barack Obama's pointman on North
Korea, was talking about the proposed summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
that was thwarted in late 2000 in Clinton's waning weeks.
Clinton had pledged to visit Pyongyang, following North Korean Marshall Jo
Myong-rok's visit to Washington and a return visit to the North Korean capital by
then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in December 2000.
Clinton recently said he regretted not going to Pyongyang at that time.
Obama has said he intends to meet with Kim Jong-il to try to persuade him to
abandon the North's nuclear ambitions, while continuing to pursue six-party
denuclearization talks.
Bosworth is charged with overseeing the six-party talks as well as the Obama
administration's overall North Korea policy, including a possible Kim-Obama
summit.
Bosworth toured South Korea, China and Japan last month in his first overseas
mission as the U.S. special representative for North Korea, but failed either to
meet with North Korean officials or visit Pyongyang, as North Korea apparently
refused to accept him.
Bosworth's failed attempt to visit Pyongyang came amid escalating tensions in the
Korean Peninsula over North Korea's imminent launch of a satellite, which the
U.S. sees as a cover for test-firing a ballistic missile capable of reaching the
continental U.S.
The multilateral nuclear talks are also stalled over North Korea's refusal in the
latest round of talks in December to accept a verification regime for its nuclear
facilities.
Bosworth said he was asked by Washington in mid-December in 2000 "for my views."
"I cautioned that a presidential visit to North Korea should be the culmination
of a successful diplomatic process," he said. "In the arsenal of U.S. diplomacy,
a presidential visit to North Korea would be the heavy artillery."
The former top U.S. diplomat in Seoul said the high-level exchanges between North
Korea and the U.S. in Clinton's waning months were prompted by North Korea's 1998
test-firing of a three-stage rocket to launch a satellite.
The Clinton administration had been "left with a de facto, if undeclared, policy
of waiting for North Korea to collapse while hoping that the Agreed Framework
would keep the nuclear genie in the bottle," Bosworth said. "The provisions of
the 1994 Agreed Framework that provided for political engagement between
Washington and Pyongyang and movement toward a more normal relationship were put
aside."
The 1994 nuclear deal calls for the freezing of North Korea's nuclear facilities
in return for building of two light-water reactors, less likely to be used for
production of weapons-grade plutonium. The deal also includes provision of heavy
fuel oil to North Korea and other economic and political benefits, including
normalization of relations between the former foes of the 1950-53 Korean War.
"Under pressure from the public and the Congress, the Clinton administration
scrambled to come up with a coherent response to the missile launch," he said,
noting that the North's underlying message in the missile launch was "if we
thought North Korea could simply be ignored and left to fade into eventual
collapse, we should think again."
Bosworth's remarks are similar to those of other experts recently on North
Korea's announcement that it will launch another rocket in early April to put a
communications satellite into orbit - that Kim Jong-il wants to woo Obama's
attention while the new U.S. president is formulating his North Korea policy.
U.S. and its allies are threatening to impose further sanctions if the North
pushes ahead with the launch, but China, the North's staunchest communist ally,
and Russia have not been clear on whether they will join in.
North Korea says it has the right to launch a satellite as part of its space
program, threatening to retaliate if the U.S. tries to shoot down the rocket.
U.S. officials have talked about a possible interception of the rocket amid
conflicting reports about U.S. capability to intercept missiles approaching from
North Korea.
