January 08, 1999
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| January 08, 1999 | atimes.com | |
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| The Koreas North-South Korean dialogue predicted SEOUL - High-level talks between North and South Korea are likely this year as Pyongyang seeks to ease its worsening food shortage, a state-funded research institute predicted Wednesday. In the Outlook of International Politics for 1999, the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security forecast that the increasing inter-Korean economic cooperation will eventually lead to a resumption of the Seoul-Pyongyang dialogue similar to those between vice ministers of the two sides held in Beijing in April 1998. The Beijing talks failed to produce results, with Seoul insisting that Pyongyang guarantee reunion of separated families, and Pyongyang maintaining that Seoul attach no conditions for food aid. ''North Korea, however, will likely try to avoid an inter-Korean summit meeting unless it faces a desperate strategic situation,'' the institute said, adding that the overall improvement in the North's relations with the South, the North's avowed enemy, will undermine the power base of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. The institute said the North will make the most of the Kim Dae-jung administration's principle of separation of politics and economy by trying to get economic cooperation from the South, on one hand, and delaying contacts between governments on the other. What the North fears most is the possibility of it being absorbed by the South as inter-Korean contacts increase. ''However, it will be inevitable for the North to open up to the outside world to a certain degree in the course of the North enhancing inter-Korean economic cooperation, although on a civilian level,'' the institute predicted. Despite the North's brinkmanship under which Pyongyang has dug a suspected underground nuclear facility and launched a multi-stage rocket, the Pyongyang regime will not likely deviate from the course of the Agreed Framework which suspended the North's nuclear weapons program, the institute forecast. ''North Korea is likely to take advantage of the four-party meeting to circumvent the pressure for direct inter-Korean dialogue while effectively pursuing improved relations with the United States and Japan,'' it said. However, the institute did not rule out the possibility of the North proposing direct contacts with the South in case Pyongyang and Washington fail to narrow differences over the latter's concern with the North's suspected nuclear site in Kumchangni and proliferation of long range missiles. The institute also predicted that North Korea's Kim Jong-il will have a summit meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin this year. China has been pursuing the summit in order to restore its traditional bilateral relations with North Korea, damaged since Beijing normalized relations with Seoul in 1992, while Kim Jong-il has no reason to refuse the summit as he officially ascended to power last September. The institute also foresaw the resumption during the latter half of this year of talks between Pyongyang and Tokyo on normalization of ties. President Kim recently urged Washington and Tokyo to establish diplomatic ties with Pyongyang to help the North open up more. (Asia Pulse/Yonhap) | |||||||||
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