N. Korea skirts nuclear issue at summit

SEOUL, South Korea -- As they wrapped up the second-ever summit between the divided Koreas, President Roh Moo-hyun raised North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's arm into the air Thursday like a champion prizefighter after a bout.

But the two Koreas remain far from delivering a knockout punch for peace, because of the lingering threat of North Korea's nuclear weapons -- a subject mostly glossed over at the Pyongyang summit.

Kim and South Korea's Roh Moo-hyun agreed Thursday on a symbolic drive for peace to end the decades-long stalemate that ensued after the Korean War was halted with a cease-fire, not a formal peace treaty. The two sides face each other across what is commonly called the world's most heavily fortified border.

Roh and his communist counterpart said in a joint declaration that they would "cooperate to push" for an end to the Korean War by raising the issue with related countries -- presumably meaning the U.S. and China, which also fought in that conflict.

In the 54 years after an armistice ended the fratricidal Korean War, two profoundly different Koreas have evolved -- a democratic South that is a world economic power buttressed by 28,000 American troops on its soil, and an impoverished, totalitarian North.

To reach a peace treaty, resolving the nuclear issue would be critical. But reunification of the peninsula would still remain a distant goal, unlikely to be achieved unless Kim were willing to release his grip on power. But the statement issued after the three days of talks, before Roh crossed the Demilitarized Zone by land on his way home, was vague enough not to tie either side's hands.

The pact signed in Pyongyang mentioned the North's nuclear weapons program in just a sentence, noting that both Koreas remain committed to previous agreements at international arms talks that include the U.S. and regional powers.

It was progress at those separate six-nation nuclear talks -- fostered by an about-face in U.S. policy, granting concessions to win Pyongyang's trust -- that enabled Roh to get to the summit, just months before he leaves office.

As part of those talks, the North shut down a decrepit plutonium-producing reactor in July and agreed Wednesday to disable the facility by the end of the year, so it cannot be easily restarted.

The nuclear agreement drew praise from President Bush, who would have to be brought into any real conversation about peace between the Koreas.

Roh and Bush met last month on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Australia at a moment remembered most for its diplomatic clumsiness, when Roh repeatedly pressed the American president to explicitly say that a peace settlement with the North could be in the offing. Officials on both sides dismissed the apparent discord as a translation problem.

Bush insisted that any peace deal was in Kim's hands, requiring total nuclear disarmament.

That goal remains elusive; the North will insist on big rewards to abandon its most potent weapons.

In exchange for disabling the reactor, North Korea is to get the equivalent of 1 million tons of oil to fuel its beleaguered economy and cope with energy shortages that often plunge even the showcase capital of Pyongyang into darkness.

The summit yielded agreements for tourist flights from South Korea to North Korea, more trade, more reunions of families divided by the north-south split, even a joint cheerleading squad for next year's Olympic Games.

The price for giving up North Korea's bombs will be far higher.

Its initial demand is to be removed from a U.S. list of countries that sponsor terrorism, a step toward ending its pariah status and becoming eligible for international loans.

North Korea also has long coveted a new nuclear reactor that could help generate power. Under a 1994 disarmament deal, the U.S. offered it two reactors of a type that cannot easily be used to make bombs. But that deal went awry when Washington claimed Pyongyang broke the agreement by starting a secret uranium enrichment program.

In the latest nuclear standoff, the U.S. so far has agreed only to discuss such reactors.

Roh toasted the 65-year-old Kim's health at least twice during festivities around the summit, and the pudgy North Korean himself denied suffering from any physical ailments as he bid farewell Thursday to the South Koreans. "South Korean media reported that I have diabetes and even heart disease, but the fact is that is not the case at all," he said.

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Burt Herman is chief of bureau in Korea for The Associated Press.