SEOUL — He may play a mean set of rock ’n’ roll drums, but recently appointed U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow is not a popular man with governments on both sides of the border.
North Korea yesterday dubbed him “the worst ambassador in history.”
A day earlier, a prominent South Korean lawmaker said Mr. Vershbow should be “called in for a talk” by the Foreign Ministry, and suggested that Seoul request Mr. Vershbow’s recall.
Mr. Vershbow, previously U.S. ambassador to Moscow, took over in October from Christopher Hill, who had won plaudits in the South for his pragmatic and low-key approach toward North Korea.
Mr. Hill left his position at the Seoul Embassy to take up a post as Washington’s chief negotiator at six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear-weapons ambitions.
Now, the future of the talks is in doubt, with Pyongyang balking at attempts by Seoul to woo it back to the negotiations, which include the United States, China, Japan and Russia.
Amid the standoff, officials in both North and South Korea have zeroed in on Mr. Vershbow since a recent speech, in which the ambassador called the rulers of the North a “criminal regime” that counterfeits U.S. currency, launders money, runs drugs and sells forbidden weapons.
The North’s official mouthpiece, the Korean Central News Agency, called Mr. Vershbow “bitchy and malignant” and demanded his immediate recall, according to KCNA reports quoted on the South’s Yonhap news service yesterday.
The KCNA also questioned his qualifications to be an ambassador to the region.
On the South Korean side, Kim Won-woong, a representative of the ruling Uri Party, also took aim at Mr. Vershbow.
“I am saying this clearly to Ambassador Vershbow. No country that becomes an obstacle on the path to reunification of the peninsula can ever be a friend of Korea, and this is something that Vershbow needs to bear in mind.”
North Korea has said it will not return to the six-party talks until U.S. financial sanctions are lifted, a demand that Mr. Vershbow said raises “artificial barriers” to the negotiations.
Outside government ranks, however, Mr. Vershbow has won his share of fans.
A group of former South Korean commandos who were sent to the North on secret operations during the Korean War and are demanding compensation and recognition of their service from the Seoul government stated, “Vershbow is right.”
And on Dec. 2, Mr. Vershbow engaged in a touch of popular diplomacy. In a trendy southern Seoul bar, the envoy, a keen amateur rock drummer, sat behind a kit and belted out a few numbers in the company of a local rock band.
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