Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Thursday defended Washington's quest for improved ties with North Korea and five days ahead of the US presidential election urged the next administration to continue a dialogue with the Stalinist state.
Albright, fresh from a landmark visit last week to Pyongyang where she became the first US official to meet reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, said it would be irresponsible for Washington not to keep up efforts to engage the North's leaders on missiles, terrorism and human rights.
"The next president will have to choose whether to continue down the path we have begun," Albright said, lauding the work of President Bill Clinton's administration in drawing hermetic North Korea into the mainstream, particularly easing concerns about its nuclear program with a 1994 agreement.
"Respectfully, I hope he will and believe he should, because I am convinced it is the right path for America, our allies and the people of Korea," she said in an address to the National Press Club here.
Albright spoke as Clinton weighs whether to accept an invitation to visit Pyongyang, a decision that is largely dependent on the result of missile talks now underway between US and North Korean negotiators in the Malaysian capital.
The US team in Kuala Lumpur, which is seeking firm details of a proposal by Kim to abandon his missile program in exchange for commercial satellite launches, has declined to comment on the talks until they are finished on Friday and Albright offered no hint as to what Clinton might decide.
However, she rejected criticism of her North Korean trip and Clinton's consideration of a similar visit that has emerged from a variety of corners, including conservatives complaining about appeasement of a communist country and those upset that human rights is not a larger part of the dialogue.
"I come down on the side that it would be truly, truly irresponsible for an American secretary of state not to follow up on this opportunity," Albright said.
She added, however, that while deals on missiles and eventually economic cooperation and restoration of diplomatic ties were the goal, they would not be reached overnight.
"We're in no hurry," she said.
"The substance of an agreement matters far more than the timing, but if prospects for further progress develop, we will pursue them. We would be irresponsible if we didn't take advantage of a historic opportunity to move beyond 50 years of Cold War division and reduce the danger that North Korean missiles pose around the globe," she said.
Albright took aim at the critics "in our country who think they know more about what is right for Korea than (South Korean President) Kim Dae-Jung and the Korean people."
Kim Dae-Jung's "sunshine policy" of openness toward the North, which earned him this year's Nobel Peace Prize, has been widely hailed as the key to the reduction in tensions on the peninsula.
US critics "argue that it is wrong for our leaders to meet with those of the DPRK," she said, using the acronym for North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"These commentators are entitled to their point of view, but without dialogue, we are stuck with the status quo," she said. "I believe the risks of trying to work with North Korea are less than the ongoing costs of confrontation."
While concentrating on security issues in her talks with North Korean officials, Albright said she had not ignored human rights concerns which she told her interlocutors would be a constant source of concern for the United States.
"At this stage, we are focusing ourselves on the security issue," she said, stressing again that direct high-level contact between the two sides was only beginning.
"We are embarked on a long road here (and) I have said that we are closer to the beginning of it than the middle or the end" -- WASHINGTON(AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
