jaz1069
02-20-2002, 03:16 PM
A few weeks ago this thread was running hot, but now I find it deleted. Oh well...I had made the point that I believe that the two Korea's would eventually unite. I was lambasted, torched, and scorned. Well, this is from today's Drudge Report...
SEOUL, South Korea -- President George W. Bush wrapped up a trip to South Korea assuring his hosts he supported their diplomatic efforts to bring North and South Korea closer.
While offering unconditional talks with Pyongyang and eschewing any intention to invade North Korea, Bush's call for freedom and openness threw down a gauntlet that communist leader Kim Jong-il is unlikely to pick up.
"Certainly Bush and President Kim Dae-jung want to have dialogue with North Korea as soon as possible, so chances are open to North Korea any time," Yu Suk-ryul, professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul told Reuters news agency.
"But North Korea knows what the U.S. wants to talk about and they cannot solve those problems through dialogue at this moment," he said.
The Bush administration has proposed comprehensive talks with Pyongyang that would include its missile and nuclear programmes as well as the conventional threat from the world's fourth largest army, much of it deployed near the militarised border.
Analyst Paik Jin-hyun said Bush's expression of sympathy for the North Korean people's lack of food and freedom would be especially troubling for Kim Jong-il and his leadership.
"Bush's saying he differentiates the North Korean regime from the North Korean people will really scare North Korea," said Paik, a North Korea expert at Seoul National University.
Evil axes
Seeking to clarify for the South Koreans his characterization of North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq, Bush carefully avoided the phrase he first used in his State of the Union address last month.
But he did manage a comment about some "axes" of evil while at the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas.
Visible from the bunker where he stood, a North Korean "peace museum" sits just across the border. And inside the peace museum are displayed axes used by North Korean soldiers to attack a U.S. tree-trimming crew in 1976. Two Americans died.
"The axes that were used to slaughter two U.S. soldiers are in the peace museum," Bush said. "No wonder I think they're evil."
Later Wednesday, in a speech delivered from the Dorasan train station, the last South Korean stop on a railway line severed since the 1950-53 Korean War, Bush said he hopes to see a Korean peninsula "one day united in commerce and cooperation, instead of divided by barbed wire and fear."
"People on both sides of this border want to live in freedom and dignity, without the threat of violence and famine and war. I hope that one day soon this hope will be realized. And when the day comes, all the people of Korea will find in America a strong and willing friend," he said.
But, he added, "we must not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most dangerous weapons."
Bush said South Korean President Kim Dae-jung had taken him to a road he built that "abruptly ends" at the DMZ -- what Bush described as a reminder "of the challenges to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula."
"That road has the potential to bring the peoples on both sides of this divided land together. And for the good of all the Korean people, the North should finish it," Bush said.
"Traveling south on that road, the people of the North would see, not a threat, but a miracle of peaceful development -- Asia's third-largest economy, risen from the ruins of war."
Before his address, Bush signed one of the ties to the unfinished railroad, with the message, "May this railroad unite Korean families."
Seoul reopened its portion of the rail line last week and has urged the North to do the same.
Bush in the Blue House
The Korean DMZ is one of the most heavily fortified border regions in the world
Bush got a firsthand glimpse of the North when he toured "Camp Bonifas" in the DMZ and ate lunch with U.S. troops Wednesday.
Afterward, as reporters were escorted under heavy security to the newly rebuilt station -- located 500 meters south of the southern boundary of the heavily fortified DMZ -- South Korean troops could be seen patrolling the fields nearby.
Lt. Charles Levine of the U.S. Army, one of the 37,000 U.S. servicemen and women who help protect South Korea from its communist neighbor, said the security situation is "no joke" with some of North Korea's million man army, weapons and equipment just across the 4-kilometer deep demilitarized zone.
"Twenty-four hours a day, we are on the highest alert," Levine said.
Early Wednesday, Bush met with Kim at Blue House, the presidential residence where Kim sought clarification from Bush about the administration's placing North Korea in the "axis of evil."
Kim told reporters afterward that he remains committed to his long-standing policy of engagement with the communist North and that the United States also is committed to his "sunshine policy."
Bush said he welcomed the North to talk, but "so far there has been no response." The U.S. president alluded to his "axis of evil" statement without reiterating it.
"Some in this country obviously have read about my very strong comments about the nature of the regime. And let me explain why I made the comments I did. I love freedom. I understand the importance of freedom in peoples' lives."
"I am troubled by a regime that tolerates starvation. I worry about a regime that is closed and not transparent," he said.
The meeting came amid extremely tight security in Seoul, where left-wing activists protesting Bush's visit clashed with police.
Bush's visit to South Korea is the second stop on a three-nation tour of Asia. He will next visit China; his first stop on the trip was to Japan.
I sit here awaiting all appologies!:D
John
SEOUL, South Korea -- President George W. Bush wrapped up a trip to South Korea assuring his hosts he supported their diplomatic efforts to bring North and South Korea closer.
While offering unconditional talks with Pyongyang and eschewing any intention to invade North Korea, Bush's call for freedom and openness threw down a gauntlet that communist leader Kim Jong-il is unlikely to pick up.
"Certainly Bush and President Kim Dae-jung want to have dialogue with North Korea as soon as possible, so chances are open to North Korea any time," Yu Suk-ryul, professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul told Reuters news agency.
"But North Korea knows what the U.S. wants to talk about and they cannot solve those problems through dialogue at this moment," he said.
The Bush administration has proposed comprehensive talks with Pyongyang that would include its missile and nuclear programmes as well as the conventional threat from the world's fourth largest army, much of it deployed near the militarised border.
Analyst Paik Jin-hyun said Bush's expression of sympathy for the North Korean people's lack of food and freedom would be especially troubling for Kim Jong-il and his leadership.
"Bush's saying he differentiates the North Korean regime from the North Korean people will really scare North Korea," said Paik, a North Korea expert at Seoul National University.
Evil axes
Seeking to clarify for the South Koreans his characterization of North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq, Bush carefully avoided the phrase he first used in his State of the Union address last month.
But he did manage a comment about some "axes" of evil while at the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas.
Visible from the bunker where he stood, a North Korean "peace museum" sits just across the border. And inside the peace museum are displayed axes used by North Korean soldiers to attack a U.S. tree-trimming crew in 1976. Two Americans died.
"The axes that were used to slaughter two U.S. soldiers are in the peace museum," Bush said. "No wonder I think they're evil."
Later Wednesday, in a speech delivered from the Dorasan train station, the last South Korean stop on a railway line severed since the 1950-53 Korean War, Bush said he hopes to see a Korean peninsula "one day united in commerce and cooperation, instead of divided by barbed wire and fear."
"People on both sides of this border want to live in freedom and dignity, without the threat of violence and famine and war. I hope that one day soon this hope will be realized. And when the day comes, all the people of Korea will find in America a strong and willing friend," he said.
But, he added, "we must not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most dangerous weapons."
Bush said South Korean President Kim Dae-jung had taken him to a road he built that "abruptly ends" at the DMZ -- what Bush described as a reminder "of the challenges to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula."
"That road has the potential to bring the peoples on both sides of this divided land together. And for the good of all the Korean people, the North should finish it," Bush said.
"Traveling south on that road, the people of the North would see, not a threat, but a miracle of peaceful development -- Asia's third-largest economy, risen from the ruins of war."
Before his address, Bush signed one of the ties to the unfinished railroad, with the message, "May this railroad unite Korean families."
Seoul reopened its portion of the rail line last week and has urged the North to do the same.
Bush in the Blue House
The Korean DMZ is one of the most heavily fortified border regions in the world
Bush got a firsthand glimpse of the North when he toured "Camp Bonifas" in the DMZ and ate lunch with U.S. troops Wednesday.
Afterward, as reporters were escorted under heavy security to the newly rebuilt station -- located 500 meters south of the southern boundary of the heavily fortified DMZ -- South Korean troops could be seen patrolling the fields nearby.
Lt. Charles Levine of the U.S. Army, one of the 37,000 U.S. servicemen and women who help protect South Korea from its communist neighbor, said the security situation is "no joke" with some of North Korea's million man army, weapons and equipment just across the 4-kilometer deep demilitarized zone.
"Twenty-four hours a day, we are on the highest alert," Levine said.
Early Wednesday, Bush met with Kim at Blue House, the presidential residence where Kim sought clarification from Bush about the administration's placing North Korea in the "axis of evil."
Kim told reporters afterward that he remains committed to his long-standing policy of engagement with the communist North and that the United States also is committed to his "sunshine policy."
Bush said he welcomed the North to talk, but "so far there has been no response." The U.S. president alluded to his "axis of evil" statement without reiterating it.
"Some in this country obviously have read about my very strong comments about the nature of the regime. And let me explain why I made the comments I did. I love freedom. I understand the importance of freedom in peoples' lives."
"I am troubled by a regime that tolerates starvation. I worry about a regime that is closed and not transparent," he said.
The meeting came amid extremely tight security in Seoul, where left-wing activists protesting Bush's visit clashed with police.
Bush's visit to South Korea is the second stop on a three-nation tour of Asia. He will next visit China; his first stop on the trip was to Japan.
I sit here awaiting all appologies!:D
John