South Korea’s Leader Calls For Haste On Treaty To End Korean War

SEOUL, South Korea — President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea called on Tuesday for a meeting of the leaders of the United States, China and the two Koreas to speed up North Koreas denuclearization and achieve a peace treaty on the divided Korean Peninsula.

When Mr. Roh met with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, in October, they agreed on the need for negotiations to formally conclude the Korean War. That conflict ended in 1953 in a cease-fire rather than a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula technically in a state of war.

But until Tuesday no leader had publicly called for such a summit meeting, which would bring the leaders of all four major parties to the Korean War together for the first time. The United States and North Korean leaders have never met.

A major step toward a formal peace would almost certainly bolster the political legacy of Mr. Roh, who will leave office in February. The Constitution bars him from running in the Dec. 19 presidential election.

Speaking to an international security forum on Tuesday, Mr. Roh noted that time was also running out for President Bush, whose second term ends in January 2009.

The reason that we are suggesting a four-way summit is simple: Its aimed at persuading North Korea to carry out its nuclear dismantlement promise at an early date, Mr. Roh said. We can never say the Bush administration has enough time.

Mr. Bush has been skeptical, saying he would not meet with Mr. Kim until North Korea dismantled its nuclear weapons programs. The White House had no immediate reaction to Mr. Rohs proposal.

In South Korea conservative critics have accused Mr. Roh of using the North Korean issue to improve his liberal camps chances in the election next month. They have said Mr. Roh might attempt to offer North Korea a peace treaty even before the North has abandoned its nuclear weapons, a prospect his aides have dismissed.

Mr. Rohs call occurred a day before the prime ministers of North and South Korea were scheduled to meet in Seoul to discuss carrying out agreements from the October summit, which called for more economic cooperation, as well as moving toward a summit meeting on a peace treaty.

He said that if the leaders of the four nations came together and declared their commitment to signing a peace treaty, it would give impetus to six-nation talks aimed at ending North Koreas nuclear programs. The six-nation talks also include Russia and Japan.

In 2005, North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear programs in return for economic aid and a peace treaty with Washington. But six-nation efforts to carry out that deal have made only piecemeal progress because of what Mr. Roh called deep mutual suspicion between Washington and Pyongyang.

On Tuesday Mr. Roh urged Mr. Bush to be more flexible, arguing that the United States had an advantage. If North Korea does not keep its promise to abandon nuclear weapons, he said, the United States has the option of quickly restoring economic sanctions. However, once North Korea gives up its nuclear card, he said, it would take years for the country to prepare a new tool for pressure.

The South Korean foreign minister, Song Min-soon, and the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met in Washington last week, and according to the South Korean government, they agreed to study ways of consolidating political wills of the highest level among the regional powers in order to speed up North Koreas denuclearization.

Mr. Roh said today that it was the right time for a four-way meeting because North Korea began disabling its nuclear facilities last week and was about to enter a much more difficult phase of negotiations on how to dismantle the facilities and dispose of the Norths plutonium stockpiles and nuclear weapons.

North Korea says it has built nuclear weapons as a self-defense measure and insists that it will not give them up until Washington guarantees its security by lifting sanctions and signing a peace treaty.

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