North Korea’s Neighbors Keep Friendly Tone

As the United Nations debated what to do about North Korea's missile launches, the two countries with the most leverage over the hard-line state -- South Korea and China -- stuck by their policies of engagement and said regional stability should be paramount.

South Korea reasserted its "sunshine" policy of conciliation with North Korea and China said it remained a "friendly" neighbor to North Korea. The muted stance by both countries could complicate efforts by Japan, the U.S. and others to push forward on a toughly worded U.N. resolution.

In New York, 13 of the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council yesterday backed a Japan-sponsored resolution to impose sanctions on North Korea, with only China and Russia favoring a much softer approach. President Bush called Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao to urge them to come around.

Yet Seoul, North Korea's biggest benefactor after Beijing, appeared determined to maintain an array of economic ties and cultural exchanges. The one penalty was to interrupt shipments of rice and fertilizer to the North.

North Korea, meanwhile, declared it might launch more ballistic missiles in coming days and warned of a bigger fight with countries that put pressure on it. "Our military will continue with missile-launch drills in the future as part of efforts to strengthen self-defense deterrent. If anyone intends to dispute or add pressure about this, we will have to take stronger physical actions in other forms," Pyongyang said.

Seoul remains concerned that a collapse of the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il would destabilize North Korea, pushing out waves of emigrants and leading to military and economic upheaval. It shares that concern with China.

Seoul mixed criticism of the missile firings with a call for "patient dialogue," while top South Korean leaders signaled they would maintain their conciliatory approach toward North Korea.

"There is no change in the sunshine policy," Lee Jong Seok, South Korea's minister of unification, said during a hearing at the National Assembly. Mr. Lee said the two countries should proceed with cabinet-level meetings that are set for next week, a gathering that will mark the highest-level contact between the two nations in a year.

However, Seoul rejected a North Korean proposal to hold military talks this week. "Our side judged that it is not an appropriate time,'' the South Korean Defense Ministry said in a statement. "We notified the North that we would propose a date at an appropriate time later."

South Korea's status-quo policy puts it at odds with Japan and the U.S., its two biggest economic and political allies. It is opposed by many politicians in the country, including some in the ruling party. North Korea's willingness to proceed with the missile tests, despite the embarrassment they have caused to South Korea's advocates of the sunshine policy, calls the policy's effectiveness into question.

Japan announced Friday that it wouldn't provide food aid to the North and that it was considering restricting agricultural and fisheries trade between the two sides. North Korea is dependent on international food shipments.

Mr. Lee and others in the South Korean government say their approach is better than having no influence in the North or being entirely cut off from Pyongyang. Jun Bong Geun, a director general at the government-sponsored Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security, said South Korea still is trying to decide how far to go in penalizing the North for the missile tests.

"If we proceed in that direction too much, North Korea may decide to return to their cave and shut their door," Mr. Jun said. "That's not what we want."

China, which has far more diplomatic leverage in Pyongyang, urged that no action disturb the "peace and stability" of the Korean peninsula. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said China is making "unremitting efforts" to bring North Korea back to six-way negotiations with the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Russia and China. The five countries have met with North Korea since 2003 to discuss its nuclear program. In September, they reached a tentative deal for North Korea to halt its weapons development, but that fell apart a short time later.

President Bush said his message in talking to Messrs. Putin and Hu "was that we want to solve this problem diplomatically, and the best way to solve this problem diplomatically is for all of us to be working in concert." The U.S. is pushing for a resumption of the six-party talks.

Negotiations on a potential U.N. resolution are expected to continue for several days, but U.S. officials said support was "overwhelming" in favor of a binding package of sanctions meant to cut off any material or financial support to North Korea's missile program. Only Russia and China expressed reservations, preferring instead a mere statement.

In a comment clearly aimed at China and South Korea, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, told reporters that "countries that have leverage over North Korea...bear the responsibility for trying to use that to bring the North Koreans back into compliance."

Mr. Bolton said that while there is some disagreement within the Security Council over whether to issue a statement or pass a resolution, "no one takes the North Korean line. Nobody says it was a good thing that North Korea launched these missiles."

South Korea's sunshine policy began in 1998, just after its last president, Kim Dae Jung, took office. It reached a climax when Mr. Kim traveled to Pyongyang for an inter-Korean summit in 2000. North Korea agreed to let South Korean companies set up an industrial zone near the North Korean city of Kaesong, an endeavor that remains the most significant joint project of the two countries.

The former South Korean president planned to travel to North Korea last week. But as North Korea prepared the missile tests, its diplomats began to slow down preparations for the visit. The former president two weeks ago decided to postpone the visit indefinitely.