S. Korean calls for cutting food to North

The top opposition leader in South Korea called yesterday for tightening a noose around North Korea by restricting food and energy aid to the Stalinist nation if six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear arms program fail.

“It would be great if we could find a solution just through dialogue, but the nuclear issue is not one we can just drag on,” Choe Byung-yul, chairman of the Grand National Party (GNP), said during a breakfast meeting with editors and reporters of The Washington Times.

The politically conservative GNP holds a majority in South Korea’s National Assembly, and it often criticizes President Roh Moo-hyun and his Millennium Democratic Party for being too conciliatory toward the North.

Pyongyang acknowledged last year it had a secret program to make nuclear weapons in violation of a 1994 pledge.

North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States recently held talks with North Korea in Beijing but failed to move toward diplomatic solution.

“I wonder when we come across issues between countries, whether you can rely solely on talks and negotiations,” said Mr. Choe, criticizing Mr. Roh for relying too much on negotiations to resolve the crisis.

“They are too obsessed with the fact that they need to find a solution to this nuclear program issue only through negotiations and talks.”

Mr. Choe also blamed former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung’s government of indirectly funding North Korea’s arms program.

Under Mr. Kim’s “Sunshine Policy,” South Korea paid North Korea $500 million for a historic inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang on June 13, 2000.

Mr. Choe said he believed an additional $500 million had been funneled through tourism projects into North Korea since then.

“We cannot but suspect that North Korea developed nuclear weapons with that hard currency,” he said.

Despite the appearance of friendly relations between the U.S. and South Korean governments, Mr. Choe said he felt Washington was not very confident in Mr. Roh’s government.

“I believe at times you need to apply pressure and there are many forms of pressure that can be applied that do not go as far as military force,” he said.

He said U.S. administration officials had been unable to give him a precise deadline for when they would give up trying to negotiate with North Korea.

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