Advertisement

Analysis: S.Korea to join U.S. initiative

By JONG-HEON LEE, UPI Correspondent

SEOUL, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- The inter-Korean reconciliation process is likely to suffer a setback in the wake of the South's decision to join a U.S.-led multilateral campaign aimed at blocking the transfer of weapons of mass destruction, analysts say.

Bowing to U.S. pressure, South Korea has decided to participate in the Proliferation Security Initiative, which allows for the seizure of missiles and other potential components of weapons of mass destruction shipped from North Korea or other countries of concern, officials said on Tuesday.

Advertisement

The presidential National Security Council, the country's top security office, decided on Dec. 29 to take part in the PSI drills, reacting to the United States' August request. The NSC notified Washington of its decision on Jan. 10, officials said.

It is the first time South Korea will attend the PSI training exercise since Washington launched it in May 2003. But officials said South Korea would join only five programs out of eight PSI-related activities.

Advertisement

The five categories are the inclusion of anti-proliferation drills in annual South Korea-U.S. military exercises, dispatching observers to both theater-level and non-theater-level PSI drills and receiving briefings on both overall PSI activities and specific anti-proliferation drills, they said.

"We agreed on the purpose and objective of the PSI against the proliferation of WMD and the level of cooperation will be reviewed," a Foreign Ministry official said.

In the first actual move, South Korean plans to send a delegation of observers to a joint PSI exercise to be held in Australia in April, he said. About 70 countries have joined the PSI programs.

The initiative is aimed at stopping trafficking of weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems and related materials to and from what the United States calls "rogue states," such as Iran and North Korea. The United States identifies North Korea as the world's most active proliferator of missile technology and missile parts.

South Korea has been reluctant to join the PSI out of concerns it may provoke North Korea, which is listed as a terrorist sponsor by Washington.

North Korea has denounced the PSI drills as "a prelude to a nuclear war" targeting the communist state. "This is a wanton violation of the sovereignty of the DPRK (North Korea) and the intolerable military move was a prelude to a nuclear war," the state-run Korean Central News Agency said in a recent report.

Advertisement

Some 32,500 U.S. troops are based in South Korea, acting as a deterrent to North Korea's 1.2 million-strong army.

The South's decision to join the initiative comes at a sensitive time when the North is resisting international pressure to rejoin the six-nation nuclear disarmament talks on its nuclear weapons program, citing Washington's hostile policy toward it.

"It's true there is some sensitivity as a process is underway to settle the North Korean nuclear issue though the six-party talks," Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told reporters.

"We have taken account of that and harmonized it with a stance opposing the spread of WMDs. So our position is to cooperate on a case-by-case basis." Ban said.

South Korean analysts express concerns that the move may trigger a furious response from the North and hurt efforts to bring in peace on the divided Korean peninsula, which is still technically in a state of war with North Korea as their 1950-53 armed conflict ended without a peace treaty.

"North Korea is most likely to respond angrily to the South's move," said Kim Kun-shik, a professor at Kyungnam University, south of Seoul.

"Coercive measures such as large-scale sanctions and interdiction of DPRK ships as part of the 'Proliferation Security Initiative' have potential to trigger a major conflict, even a conflagration," Park Jae-kyu, former unification minister, said in a recent forum in Washington.

Advertisement

Choi Jae-cheon, a ruling lawmaker, described the government's decision as "a departure" from its earlier position that seeks reconciliation and cooperation with North Korea. "The government's decision to join PSI programs would increase instability on the peninsula," he said.

As part of U.S. efforts to this end, President George W. Bush signed an Executive Order in June 2005, authorizing the U.S. government to freeze assets and block transactions of entities and persons engaged in proliferation activities.

Latest Headlines