• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1880 0

existed within the regime, or at least that North Korea wanted the United States to believe there were, about accepting his ideas. At U.S. requests for a meeting with a senior military figure, General Lee Yong Chol, a high-ranking member of Kim Jong Il's entourage, met the Perry team. "We don't normally meet with our enemies," he began bluntly, and proceeded to say he believed it was a bad idea even to discuss giving up North Korean missiles. Referring to the intensive U.S. bombing of Yugoslavia then taking place, he said this was because the Serbs were unable to fire back at the United States, and that North Korea was determined never to be in that position. Moreover, Lee referred to the Foreign Ministry officials as wimpish and said the military would pay little heed to what they thought.

Perry had made only pro-forma requests to see Kim Jong 11, the person who would ultimately decide what course North Korea would take, and no such meeting was arranged. On the final day of his visit, Perry summarized his proposals in a brief meeting with Kang. The United States had taken an important step in sending him to Pyongyang as the personal representative of President Clinton, and now it was up to North Korea to take the next step, he said. Kang was noncommittal. As the U.S. Air Force plane took off for Tokyo, Perry told his team that he believed his mission had failed. He doubted that the Foreign Ministry and the Workers Party could win a debate with the armed forces, although he conceded he did not know what the ultimate decision-maker, Kim Jong 11, might be thinking. The experienced Korean experts in his party read the tea leaves differently. They thought that Kang and some others were clearly intrigued with Perry's ideas and that they might well succeed in moving in a positive direction.

Before leaving Pyongyang, Perry suggested that if his proposals were too sweeping to digest all at once, North Korea might consider taking a smaller initial bite, such as placing a moratorium on further flight tests of its missiles. The United States could take its own small step by easing some U.S. economic sanctions. On June 23, less than a month after the Perry visit, North Korea's diplomats asked their U.S. counterparts in a meeting in Beijing for more details of what Perry had in mind, a clear sign that Pyongyang was interested. Serious discussions began in August in Geneva. A month later in Berlin, in midSeptember 1999, North Korea agreed to a moratorium on further missile tests while talks continued. In return, President Clinton announced the lifting of sanctions that banned most U.S. exports to and imports from the DPRK. Pyongyang had initially accepted only a first bite-sized portion, but to a U.S. negotiator, "They had bitten; they had taken the hook." Albright declared publicly that the United States was heading down a new and more hopeful road in its relations with North Korea-but that Washington could reverse course if it became necessary. The missile test moratorium and the visit to the underground cavern took the edge off the anger in Congress that had erupted a year earlier. The future path of the US. -DPRK relationship, however, remained uncertain.

TOWARD THE JUNE SUMMIT

For many summers North Korean fishermen had ventured south into a rich crab-harvesting area across an invisible line on the map that had been utilized as a sea border between the two Koreas since the 1950-53 war. Usually the crabbers had scuttled back north when confronted with southern ships, but in June 1999 they unaccountably did not do so, but stayed to fish under the protection of northern patrol craft. On June 10 a dozen North Korea crab-fishing boats, escorted by six North Korean patrol boats, were confronted by South Korean patrol boats, which began ramming the invading vessels to force them back across the dividing line. After a few minutes, the North Korean boats, several of which had been damaged, fled north.

On June 13, a renewal of the confrontation escalated into a miniwar. The southern side had strict orders not to fire first, but the