South Korea seeks security by reaching out to the North

May 14, 2005, 10:31PM

South Korea seeks security by reaching out to the North

Seoul's efforts include trading zoo animals and aiding economy

By JAMES BROOKE
New York Times

Associated Press

To help contain a bird flu outbreak, South Korean health officials spray disinfectant on a vehicle near the demilitarized zone.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - To Bush administration strategists, a quarantine of North Korea means searching trucks, trains and planes for nuclear materials smuggled out of that impoverished country.

But South Korea, an advocate of engagement, has already set up its own "quarantine" of the North. An outbreak of bird flu this spring at chicken farms near Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, forced South Korea to spray disinfectant on the growing stream of buses and trucks crossing the border.

In April, when the two Koreas conducted their first zoo exchange, veterinarians quarantined the contribution from the Pyongyang Central Zoo ?Asiatic black bears, African ponies and Siberian weasels.

This quarantine gap highlights a wider policy gap between Seoul and Washington.

Bush administration officials are frustrated by an 11-month-long boycott by North Korea of talks on its nuclear program, and concerned that it may test a nuclear weapon. As a result, they are debating whether to seek U.N. authorization to empower nations to search cargoes leaving or entering North Korea for nuclear-related materials.

South Korea takes a different tack, seeking to enhance security on the divided peninsula by reaching out to North Korea, promoting trade, investment and economic interdependence. The quarantine of zoo animals imported from North Korea was adopted as a health measure to help nurture an experiment ?road traffic between the Koreas.

Whether it is zoos trading animals or sending South Korean firefighting helicopters to douse fires on the northern side of the demilitarized zone, parts of the long-fortified border now look more like Swiss cheese.

"Pressuring them, containing them, won't work," Ihm Seon-thaek, a South Korean bulldozer operator, said as he waited for a bus to take him to his job at a new industrial park run by South Koreans in Kaesong, North Korea. "The solution is to have many Kaesongs. To have a lot of human contact."