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Missile crisis has clouded outlook for trip
Former president Kim Dae-jung said Tuesday that he will not try to go to unreasonable lengths to visit Pyongyang. His planned visit, most recently postponed after North Korea began making preparations to test several missiles, is now on hold indefinitely after the North completed its test launches July 5, local time. "If I go just because it is me who wants to go, it would only serve to make me an odd character" in the eyes of the public and North Korea, he told Democratic Party leaders Han Hwa-Kap and newly re-elected Chough Soon-hyung when the two called on him at his residence in Seoul's Donggyo-dong. "I should go if and when [the North Korean authorities] say they want to hear what I have to say," he said, according to party spokesman Lee Sang-yeol after the meeting.Kim's comments appear to mean he thinks it will be hard for conditions to permit him to visit Pyongyang until the issue of North Korea's missile launch is resolved. "I don't know what the North is thinking," he is quoted as saying. "The only people that would ever clap their hands with approval [at firing missiles] are hard-liners in the U.S. and Japan, so the North is hurting its own interests." However, Kim also said the U.S. has acted "somewhat less than fully wise" in handling Pyongyang. "The strategy of trying to lead the North in the desired direction by blockading it is a failed one. The U.S. has to talk to North Korea to change it." Speaking about U.S.-Korea relations in general, he said, "We have to be treated to as much as we've given for the relationship to be maintained." "Ultimately we've given all there is to give; among other things, sending troops to Iraq and [dealing with] the relocation of U.S. troops [in South Korea] to rear positions." Kim said the current administration "needs to be able to be persuasive with the U.S., which tends to take issue with trivial matters."
