June 16, 2000	atimes.com

The Koreas Korean summit presents an opportunity to US By Leon V Sigal* NEW YORK - In the United States debate over missile defense, threat-mongers are hyping the missile menace from so-called ''rogue states'' to justify spending $60 billion on defenses. Exhibit A for missile defense proponents has been North Korea. But the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has refrained from testing a ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental United States, and even worst-case estimates put it a decade away from deploying one. Long before that, Washington could negotiate a ban on development, production, and export of Pyongyang's medium- and longer-range missiles - a less risky way to counter the threat than unproven missile defenses. In a major stride toward such a ban, North Korea agreed last September to suspend testing while missile talks proceed. It was expected to send a high-level representative to Washington to conduct the talks, assuring equally high-level attention in the US government. In return, the United States announced on September 17 that it would ease its decades-long economic embargo on North Korea. North Korea has kept its end of the bargain; there has been no untoward activity at its missile test sites since September. The United States has been slow to reciprocate but is now committed to relaxing sanctions soon. Until it does, however, North Korea's high-level representative will not come to Washington, and lower-level nuclear and missile talks are likely to go nowhere fast. The summit meeting between South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il this week in Pyongyang could improve prospects for a negotiated end to the North's medium- and longer-range missile program. So could normalization talks between Japan and North Korea, resumed this year after an almost eight-year lapse. For eight years North Korea has been expressing interest in a missile deal, but it was unwilling to give up its missiles without getting something in return. Most observers took this as a desperate ploy by a regime on the ropes to obtain foreign aid in order to revive its moribund economy. Instead, what North Korea wanted most of all was a political accommodation with the United States, South Korea, and Japan to ensure its security. Tokyo and Seoul recognize that an end to adversarial relations with Pyongyang is the best way to halt proliferation and improve security in Northeast Asia. Moscow and Beijing are also well aware of North Korea's desire for a diplomatic resolution of the missile issue. That is why Russian President Vladimir Putin recently offered to work with the United States to induce North Korea to cease development of longer-range ballistic missiles. That is also why China has concluded that US missile defenses are aimed at it, not North Korea. ''The US is a huge superpower and you're afraid of little North Korea?'' Sha Zukang, China's director-general for arms control and disarmament, said recently. But Washington has yet to come to this realization. US policy-makers must ask themselves why North Korea would move to disarm if the United States remains intent on treating it like a foe. To negotiate an end to North Korea's missile threat, Washington and Pyongyang need to set political relations on a new course by declaring an end to enmity. As a practical step toward that end, the United States should call off its economic embargo now. In return, North Korea would agree in writing to a formal moratorium on missile testing as a first step toward a comprehensive ban. Ending adversarial relations with North Korea will put an end to the proliferation danger on the peninsula. In the late 1980s, North Korea's Kim Il-sung decided to reach out to the United States, South Korea, and Japan and transform political relations. Now, for the first time, Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo are ready to reciprocate. That will make it possible to put an end to the North Korean missile threat - without deploying untested missile defenses. *Leon V Sigal is director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council in New York and author of Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea. ((c) 2000 New York University. All Rights Reserved. The Global Beat Syndicate is a service of New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media. For more information, check out http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/. )

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