Bush meets with S. Korean leader

WASHINGTON -- President Bush and newly elected South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun agreed Wednesday that the Korean Peninsula should be nuclear-weapons free and that the current standoff with North Korea should be resolved through peaceful means.

"We're making good progress toward achieving that peaceful resolution ... in regard to North Korea," Bush said in a Rose Garden statement with Roh by his side.

Roh, who in the past has urged the United States against slapping economic sanctions on the North or considering military force, said that he came to his meeting with Bush with "both concerns and hopes in my mind," but that Bush had dispelled the concerns.

"Now I return to Korea with only hopes in my mind," Roh said.

The two presidents issued a joint statement asserting that their countries "will not tolerate" nuclear weapons in North Korea and invited other nations in the region and Russia to help defuse the current nuclear standoff. The leaders stated their confidence that peaceful resolution is possible "while noting that increased threats to peace and stability on the peninsula would require consideration of further steps."

"Escalatory moves by North Korea will only lead to its greater isolation and a more desperate situation in the North," their statement said.

The "further steps" mentioned in the joint statement could mean military action as well as "a lot of things in the toolbox," said a senior administration official who briefed reporters after the meeting on condition of anonymity. The South Koreans accepted that vaguely worded reference because Bush and Roh also agreed that diplomacy and increasing isolation of North Korea are the preferred tactics, the official said.

It was the first time the two leaders had met face to face, after four previous phone conversations. Their time together included a private tour for Roh of the White House with an emphasis on Abraham Lincoln, one of the South Korean leaders' favorite historical figures, the official said.

Bush said he found Roh "to be an easy man to talk to. He expresses his opinions clearly and he's easy to understand."

The two leaders spoke briefly from the Rose Garden, which was bright with late-day sunlight, then turned without taking questions to the residence portion of the White House for dinner.

Earlier, Roh appealed to the United States not to rush to a decision to reposition the 36,000 U.S. troops now stationed in South Korea. His office said in a statement that Vice President Dick Cheney told Roh over lunch that "U.S. troops should stay in South Korea because they guarantee security in the region."

U.S. officials did not dispute the account.

Years ago, Roh demanded that U.S. troops leave but now he is seeking to delay U.S. proposals to move troops away from the Demilitarized Zone, which separates the two Koreas.

Roh told Cheney, "I understand the principle and necessity of relocation of American forces in South Korea." But, he added, such a "realignment of U.S. forces affects Korean politics and the economy," according to the South Korean statement.

"There has to be close coordination between the U.S. and South Korea on this subject," Roh was quoted as saying.

On the North Korean nuclear standoff, Bush and Roh both emphasized a diplomatic solution.

In their joint statement, the two leaders welcomed China's role in hosting a three-way meeting last month that included the North and the United States. The statement also suggested that subsequent talks should also include South Korea and Japan and that "Russia and other nations can also play a constructive role."

Participation of all these nations is "essential for a successful and comprehensive settlement," the statement said.

However, the leaders did not set a time frame for more talks, preferring to make sure first that all the regional players are on board with the same, strong message, the official said.

White House officials said ahead of the meeting that the United States would not rule out force as an option to keep Pyongyang from pursuing its nuclear ambitions.

"The president never takes his options off the table in any circumstance," Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told reporters.

"No one should be willing to give in to the kind of blackmail that the North Koreans have been practicing on the world for a number of years now," she added.

Roh favors more engagement with North Korea, but the Bush administration is wary of negotiating with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Top Bush advisers are divided on whether to pursue a policy of containment or increased dialogue.

At talks in Beijing last month, North Korea said it would give up its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for economic aid and security guarantees.

The Beijing talks were the first since the crisis erupted last October, when Washington said North Korea had acknowledged running a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 treaty with the United States.

North Korea subsequently withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and took steps to restart nuclear facilities frozen under the pact.