The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [148]
Before making his formal decisions, Bush privately informed South Korean president Roh Tae Woo in a meeting at the United Nations that the United States would continue to provide the nuclear umbrella-that is, nuclear protection against threats to South Korea's security-whether or not American nuclear weapons were in place on the peninsula.
In December, when the last of the nuclear bombs had been removed, Roh was permitted to announce officially that "as I speak, there do not exist any nuclear weapons whatsoever, anywhere in the Republic of Korea." The withdrawal of the American nuclear weapons had a powerful effect in North Korea, contributing in important fashion to an era of compromise and conciliation.
THE DECEMBER ACCORDS
The winter of 1991 inaugurated a period of unusual progress in North-South relations and in North Korea's relations with the United States. It was one of those rare periods when the policies of the two Koreas were in alignment for conciliation and agreement, with all of the major outside powers either neutral or supportive.
Economically and politically, 1991 had been a very bad year for Kim Il Sung. His estrangement from the Soviet Union the previous year had cost him a crucial alliance and left him with a painful energy shortage and worsening economic problems. North Korean leaders were briefly cheered in August 1991 by the coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev, and they quickly made it known they hoped it would succeed. However, when the coup failed and Russian president Yeltsin became the de facto leader of the failing Soviet Union, Kim could expect no help or even sympathy from Moscow.
In the spring of 1991, Kim's other major ally, China, had forced him to reverse his long-standing opposition to dual entry with South Korea to the United Nations. Now Beijing was moving toward nor malization of relations with Seoul. When Kim visited China in October, he was advised to open up economically as China had done and to undertake a rapid settlement with South Korea in the interest of regional peace and stability. Chinese leaders also urged him to give credence to Bush's announcement that American tactical nuclear weapons were being withdrawn and to resolve the concern over the North Korean nuclear program as soon as possible. After returning from Beijing, Kim convened a Politburo meeting, from which emerged new efforts at reconciliation with the South and the world outside.
Simultaneously, South Korea had been shifting toward a more conciliatory posture regarding the North in preparation for the final year of Roh Tae Woo's presidency, during which he hoped to have a summit meeting with Kim 11 Sung. High-level talks led by the two prime ministers visiting each other's capitals, which had begun in the fall of 1990, resumed in the fall of 1991. In a private conversation with the visiting North Korean prime minister, Roh sent word to Kim of his desire for a summit meeting as a step toward an improved relationship between the North and South. Kim responded, through the next visit to Pyongyang of the South Korean prime minister, that he was willing to meet if there was something important to be achieved, but not under other circumstances.
Starting with the October 22-25, 1991, prime ministerial meeting in Pyongyang, rapid progress was made between North and South. Before the southerners went home, the two Koreas had agreed in principle to work out and adopt at their next meeting a single document setting the terms for broad-ranging accord. When the northern team came to Seoul on December 10, it was prepared to compromise and, as southern delegates saw it, ready to sign an agreement. "This time we brought the seal with us," said a visitor from Pyongyang, referring to the official stamp used to authenticate documents in Asia. This was an astonishing change from the months and years of sterile negotiations in which the two Koreas had refused to budge from fixed positions.
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