The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [124]
Shevardnadze bore down hardest on the threat to create nuclear weapons. As a friend, he said, he would advise against this. Production of nuclear weapons would severely harm the DPRK's relations with the West and the international community, and the Soviet Union would have to react as well. He added, in an echo of Kim Il Sung's official line for years, that there was no possibility of using nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula, because they would devastate not only the South but the North as well, and also damage China.
In reply, Kim Yong Nam repeated his statements from the previous day, even more harshly than before. In response to a direct question, he said it would be "very difficult" for the Soviet foreign minister to see President Kim Il Sung, who-he said-was out of Pyongyang.
Shevardnadze took this news in good grace at the meeting, but privately he was angry and upset, inasmuch as trying to explain the Soviet policy to the Great Leader had been his principal purpose in coming to Pyongyang. Back at his guest house-a notably smaller and less well-appointed one than that he had occupied two years earlier-Shevardnadze decided to leave at once, abruptly gathering his staff and departing several hours earlier than scheduled.
The Soviet foreign minister was still smarting from his treatment in Pyongyang when he went to New York for the UN General Assembly meetings later in September. While there, he planned to make a joint announcement with South Korea to establish Soviet-ROK diplomatic relations as of January 1. At a diplomatic reception several days before their planned announcement, South Korean foreign minister Choi Ho Joong, under instructions from Seoul, buttonholed Shevardnadze and pleaded with him to move up the date, arguing that "this is a good and right thing, so why not do it immediately?" To Choi's surprise, at their meeting on September 30, Shevardnadze readily agreed. With a flourish, the Soviet foreign minister took out his pen and struck through "January 1, 1991" on the prepared announcement, substituting "September 30, 1990" as the date for inaugurating the new relationship. As Shevardnadze crossed off one date and entered the other, he said under his breath in Russian, loud enough for his party to hear, "That will take care of our friends," meaning the North Koreans.
Pyongyang responded with a bitter denunciation in Nodong Sinmun, under the headline, "Diplomatic Relations Sold and Bought With Dollars." Citing past promises from Gorbachev and Shevardnadze not to recognize South Korea, the article declared that "the Soviet Union today is not the Soviet Union of past days when it adhered to socialist internationalism but it has degenerated into a state of a certain other character.... The Soviet Union sold off the dignity and honor of a socialist power and the interests and faith of an ally for $2.3 billion" [the amount of a reported South Korean economic cooperation fund for Moscow.] The article was written under the byline of "commentator," a designation given only to the most authoritative statements from North Korea's ruling hierarchy.
North Korea's relations with its original sponsor were headed into a deep freeze, with immense practical as well as political consequences. The Soviet Union was by far Pyongyang's most important trading partner, providing North Korea with most of its imports of weapons and weapons technology and large amounts of machinery and equipment. Moscow was also an important supplier of petroleum, though not as large as China. Soviet exports to North Korea were supplied on a highly concessional basis that most other nations would