North Korea's Kim looking to ensure survival in summit with South: official

North Korea's Kim looking to ensure survival in summit with South: official

The Associated Press
Monday, August 13, 2007

SEOUL, South Korea: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is seeking to ensure the stability of his authoritarian regime in agreeing to meet South Korea's president and wants to improve relations with his capitalist neighbor, the last high-ranking official from Seoul to meet Kim said Monday.
Former South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young also said he believes North Korea will abandon its nuclear programs as it has pledged to do amid warming relations with Washington, because Kim made clear at their June 2005 meeting in Pyongyang that his motivation for building bombs was solely because of deep-seated fears of the United States.
Kim "feels very threatened and is very afraid of the United States," Chung told foreign journalists. The North Korean leader "said he felt he was being watched by the United States all the time," he said.
Kim "will take full advantage of this opportunity to confirm the stability of the regime," Chung said.
Officials from the two Koreas are to meet Tuesday in the North Korean border city of Kaesong to set the agenda of the Aug. 28-30 summit in Pyongyang, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Nam-shik said Monday.
The current lack of an agenda has drawn criticism that the summit is a political ploy aimed at boosting the liberals aligned with South President Roh Moo-hyun ahead of December's presidential vote — including Chung, a candidate with a newly formed pro-government party.
But Chung argued that summits between the Koreas were unlike other meetings of heads of state where every step is choreographed and agreed ahead of time, and said there had also been no preset agenda for the first-ever such meeting in 2000.
During his meeting with Kim, Chung said he had discussed a summit between the Koreas to take place in September 2005.
Kim was agreeable and said "South and North Korea must not lose more time," according to Chung.
But the arrangements were put off as international negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program came to a standstill after Washington blacklisted a bank where Pyongyang had accounts for alleged complicity in money laundering by the government.
The U.S. reversed its policy earlier this year to encourage progress on the nuclear issue, and North Korea shut down its sole operating reactor last month — setting the stage for the second meeting between leaders of the Koreas since they were divided in the wake of World War II.
Chung said Kim displayed an acute awareness of the outside world and in particular how he is viewed by the United States, even noting the exact date he claimed former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld called him an "idiot."
Kim said he pursed his nuclear program because of fears that "a big superpower like the United States would like to step on a small country," according to Chung.
"If the United States recognizes our sovereignty, we have really no need to maintain nuclear weapons," Chung quoted Kim as saying.
Chung predicted the two current Korean leaders would find an easy rapport at their meeting as they both have reputations for being frank and clear-cut.
"They will not beat about the bush but will get started with talks directly," Chung said.