Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 6, 1992 TAG: 9201060215
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
KIM SEEKS TRADE PULL NORTH KOREA'S NUKE TEETH
COMMUNISM is all but dead in Europe and Central Asia. No one will want to embalm the corpse, like Lenin's, for viewing by the formerly faithful.But bastions of socialism remain in the Far East, including China and Vietnam. And in North Korea, which is trying to keep its ideology while reaching out to others - principally South Korea.
Links between those countries would be a big step. In 1950 the North invaded the South, and the war - with U.S. and United Nations troops helping defend South Korea - dragged on to stalemate in 1953. Since, the Koreas have glared at each other over a demilitarized zone, and the North has tried repeatedly to infiltrate and terrorize its neighbor. In 1983, North Korean agents planted bombs that killed 13 South Koreans, four of them cabinet members, on a good-will mission to Burma.
For most of the past 40 years, North Korea has presented an unchanging and hostile face to the rest of the globe. The face was, first, that of President Kim Il Sung, then his and that of his son, Kim Jong Il. National self-sufficien-cy has been the byword.
The ice is cracking. Like socialist countries in Europe, the North has suffered lately from a limping economy, food and fuel shortages and lagging industries. It can no longer play the Soviet Union against China to get help. From other countries, it needs contacts, trade, technology, whatever it can get short of capitalist notions. What better place to start than with South Korea, which has a thriving economy and many links with the West?
Pyongyang's not about to admit its problems to its own people, let alone imply the West has something better. Other socialist governments have made "mistakes" that North Koreans can learn from. One thing they're learning is how to say yes. After a series of unproductive meetings between the two Koreas' prime ministers, stretching over 15 months, suddenly the North was ready to deal.
The result is the drawing up of a non-aggression pact, complete with a military hot line to reduce the chance of war; restored communications ties; reunion of divided families; freer trade and investment; and unrestricted movement of people and ideas. All this is to be followed next spring by a summit between Kim and the South's president, Roh Tae Woo.
The key to these achievements was the North's abandoning its hard line regarding nuclear weapons. For years the Kim regime insisted it had no nukes and no plans to get any; it was untroubled by the illogic in then refusing nuclear inspections. But now it has agreed, along with the South, to make the peninsula free of nukes. Pyongyang says it will sign a safeguards accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency and allow inspection by neutral parties.
So far, so good. But Seoul must not let the North get away with promises, as it would like to do while reaping economic and other benefits from renewed ties. The planet does not need any more nuclear powers. The bomb, even its potential, is a terrible mischief-maker.