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1. Wayward N.K. acts again
Pyongyang demonstrated again that it was unpredictable and unreliable as a negotiating partner when it told Seoul Friday that it was postponing the scheduled reunion of separated family members. All of a sudden, it was scrapping an agreement, concluded at cabinet-level talks in mid-September, to exchange 100 people from each side tomorrow so that they could meet their long-lost family members and relatives.
The short notice was disappointing to the South Korean government as well as to the 100 selected South Koreans, who had been waiting to see their kin in the North for the first time since the 1950-53 fratricidal Korean War. But it was anything but surprising given the past behavior of North Korea, which has had no qualms about canceling a conference or any other event only several hours ahead of schedule.
Nevertheless, Pyongyang's decision to postpone the family reunions indefinitely appeared to have frayed the nerves of President Kim Dae-jung. He said to Minister of Unification Hong Soon-young, "We will have to take the necessary measures to have the North clearly understand what we think about it."
His call for a tough response to North Korea's wayward act this time, though legitimate, was a departure from what President Kim used to do in the past: He took little action while keeping the appearance of being unperturbed when, on such an occasion, he was accused by his critics of being pushed around by the North. Apparently, he was being patient in order to keep alive his vaunted "sunshine policy" of engaging North Korea as an alternative to another Korean War.
Duly instructed, Minister Hong implied in his telephone message that South Korea could boycott the next cabinet-level and other talks where the two sides expected to discuss South Korean food aid for the starving North and other inter-Korean projects.
In a diplomatic but unmistakable overtone, Hong said: "We are worried that we might not be able to achieve what we intended to at the cabinet-level talks and (lower-level) economic talks (both scheduled for later this month) if the exchange of separated families, a major agreement concluded at the previous cabinet-level talks, be deferred."
Of dubious nature was the reason the North cited for the indefinite delay, which the South regarded as a "grave violation" of the agreement concluded at the cabinet-level talks - that the South Korean military and police had been put on increased alert to guard against terror since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
In what looked like deliberate nonsense, the North said it could not send a planeload of civilians to the South at the risk of accidental antiaircraft artillery or missile attack. It went on to say, "Dialogue and exchange visits cannot proceed smoothly if (the South) keeps itself in warlike emergency alert, and there is no guarantee against an accident, either."
But forgetfulness looked like a blessing for North Korea, which certainly needed a reminder of sending a cabinet member and vice minister-level officials to Seoul for talks on family reunions, tourism to Mt. Geumgang and other projects on Sept. 15 when South Korea remained on the same emergency footing as now. At that time, the chief North Korean delegate went so far as to repeat Pyongyang's earlier denunciation of the terrorist assault on the United States.
While delaying the exchange of separated family members, the North said it would go ahead with the cabinet-level and economic talks as scheduled and renewed a proposal that they be held in Mt. Geumgang, where it said safety was guaranteed.
What motivated the North to postpone the exchange of separated family members when its shrewd policymakers were certainly well aware that it was one of the few trump cards in their hand in soliciting aid from the South?
One of the theories that was advanced by South Korean analysts was that it was a tantrum about the South Korean government's refusal to guarantee a nearly bankrupt private company's payment for tourists' access to Mt. Geumgang, $24 million in arrears, not a small sum for the North. Another theory had it that the North Korean military, opposed to rapid rapprochement, was instead taking issue with the South Korean military alert.
Whatever the motivation might have been, Pyongyang made a wrong move this time. It invited harsh responses not only from the South Korean government but also from the opposition party, which threatened to revoke its proposal for 300,000 tons of rice in aid to the North
2. Proactive diplomacy
Returning from his one-day trip to Beijing Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was reportedly relieved that neither President Jiang Zemin nor Premier Zhu Rongji was as "harsh" as he had expected. Koizumi obtained, apparently without much difficulty, the Chinese leaders' understanding over his visit to Yasukuni Shrine and Tokyo's approval of history textbooks glossing over its military past.
More importantly, Koizumi hardly faced any problem in acquiring China's understanding in Japan's role in the ongoing international anti-terrorism operations that must have been a knotty issue in other circumstances. Jiang didn't go far beyond saying that Tokyo should understand there is "caution" among other Asians toward its plans to send Self-Defense Forces personnel to provide logistic support to the U.S.-led strikes against Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Koizumi may now believe that he has overcome most of the external hurdles for Tokyo's bid to broaden the scope of overseas activities for its Self-Defense Forces. Looking forward to making another whirlwind trip here next Monday, he may not be expecting such a "harsh" reception that he had allegedly anticipated from Beijing. What is regrettable is that Koizumi may have good reason for his optimism about Seoul's response to his visit.
The government made its decision to accept Koizumi's visit quite abruptly after learning that he was going to visit China. Most likely, officials of our government became worried about being squeezed in a "diplomatic nutcracker" between their two neighbors. With the bilateral relations seriously deteriorated since spring over history textbooks and Koizumi's Yasukuni trip, the government had firmly opposed his proposed visit without "sincere measures" taken by Tokyo to mitigate the public fury.
Now it is feared that, when they face each other for the first time at Cheong Wa Dae next Monday, President Kim and Prime Minister Koizumi may be embarrassed to find yet another sticky issue on their agenda. They may have to grope for a breakthrough in the current standoff between the two countries surrounding Korea's fishing rights for saury in the sea off the Russian-held southern Kuril Islands claimed by Japan.
Without a prior consensus at the working level, the fishing dispute will likely be an uneasy topic for the two leaders. It will be particularly so in view of the tangled nature of the issue that involves not only Seoul and Tokyo but Moscow as well. The dispute also concerns North Korea and Ukraine - and Taiwan, too, indirectly - because Russia has also granted them the right to fish in the waters that Japan claim to be within its exclusive economic zone.
The fishing row will be placed on the summit table, mainly because our diplomats and maritime officials failed to make sufficient efforts to resolve it in the past months. It was in June that, quite suddenly, Japan took issue with Korea's fishing rights in the waters around the four disputed islands near Hokkaido that had been allowed by the 1991 bilateral agreement between Russia and Korea on cooperation in the fisheries industry.
Giving up its prior stance that Korean fishing activities were of a "purely commercial nature," Russia assured Japan last month that it would no longer allow other countries to fish in the disputed waters. The assurance is reportedly based on the condition that Tokyo compensate Moscow for the lost revenue from fishing fees. Koizumi is known to have lodged a strong protest with Russian President Vladimir Putin, complaining that Russia had ignored Japan's repeated requests not to allow fishing by a third country in the area.
From South Korea's position, the fishing dispute is a serious issue in terms of both national pride and the livelihood of fishermen. Officials of the concerned government agencies should have made all possible efforts to keep the fishing rights in the waters, where our vessels hauled up about 40 percent of the entire annual saury catch. They should have tried all possible means, if they were not to be "stabbed in the back" and thereby to throw our fishermen into a hapless situation.
This is not the first time that our national pride, as well as the economy, has been made to suffer due to ungrounded optimism and lack of strategy on the part of our officials. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade had already shown a woeful incapability in handling the dispute over history textbooks with Japan. They need to plan ahead and use all possible resources in order to more wisely navigate the sea of conflicting interests of the world's different nations.