Rice offers North Korea olive branch

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2459977,00.html

Rice offers North Korea olive branch

Michael Sheridan, Hanoi



THE United States offered an olive branch to North Korea and Burma
yesterday, with the promise of peace and opportunity if their isolated
regimes made the right "strategic choices".
The change of tone came as President George W Bush used a summit in
Vietnam to try to hold together America's Asian allies in maintaining
pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons.


Washington's overture to the two most intractable regimes in the
region was interpreted by some as an acknowledgment that Bush has been
weakened by defeat in the US midterm elections and by the violence in
Iraq.
The president "understands political constraints", said Tony Snow, the
White House press secretary.
America found itself forced to wage a charm offensive, where once it
waged an air offensive, as the Hanoi summit developed into a contest
for influence with the rising power, China.
Speaking in Hanoi, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said
yesterday that America's experience with Vietnam showed that former
enemies could be friends and partners. "This case of Vietnam is
instructive," she told businessmen and officials. "It shows that the
past can be overcome."
She said that Vietnam's communist leaders had opted to restore
relations with the United States, reform the country's economy and
join the global trading system.
"There are other nations with which we hope to overcome differences,
too," Rice said with emphasis, singling out North Korea and Burma. If
they followed Vietnam's example, a new path of peace and opportunity
could open up for them.
Rice was warmly applauded, but behind the scenes at the Asia-Pacific
summit US diplomats were struggling to win support for the Bush
administration's tough policies against both regimes.
Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, said the United States
was "pleased" with a declaration expected to urge Pyongyang to return
to nuclear disarmament talks and abide by United Nations resolutions.
But the Americans have failed to win a consensus for strong measures
against North Korea after its test explosion of a nuclear device on
October 9.
Even the president of South Korea rebuffed Bush's entreaties to join
naval inspections of North Korean cargo vessels. Nor is there much
support for America's aim of bringing Burma before the UN security
council.
The difference in treatment and perceptions between Bush and President
Hu Jintao of China - whose country also fought against Vietnam, in a
1979 border war - has been conspicuous in Hanoi.
Bush's Vietnam schedule was abruptly cut back after the election
defeat, diplomatic sources said. His few public engagements have been
tightly controlled. Heavily protected by thousands of elite troops and
police, Bush has hardly been seen by Hanoi's inhabitants.
The Chinese leader, however, arrived several days before the summit
for a flower-strewn schedule of smiles and ribbon-cutting intended to
show Asians that Beijing, not Washington, is now the capital that
counts.
A Chinese diplomat said his country had minutely prepared Hu's trip
months in advance, resulting in the signature of a dozen economic
agreements, promises to resolve border disputes and agreement to share
offshore exploration for oil and gas.
Hu delivered a bland speech to an audience of global business
executives and was visibly pleased to hear two western chief
executives first praise his "inspiring remarks", then thank him for
his leadership of the Chinese people. No such flattery was accorded to
Bush.
When the US president flies to Indonesia, the world's most populous
Muslim country, tomorrow he will face an even harder sell for his
policies. The Indonesian government has mobilised thousands of
security personnel to seal off the hill town of Bogor, in Java, where
Air Force One will stop for just a few hours.
Some 50 Islamist groups are planning a mass demonstration in central
Jakarta and are promising to send crowds of the faithful to Bogor to
protest at the visit.
A spokesman for the militant group alleged to have been behind the
2002 Bali bombing said it was legitimate for Muslims to take violent
action against Bush.
The threat came from Fauzan, who speaks for the Indonesian Mujaheddin
Council, headed by Abu Bakar Bashir, the extremist cleric. "His blood
is halal to shed," said Fauzan, referring to the Arabic term for
religious approval. "How many people have died or suffer because of
his policy in the Middle East?"
The militants are using the occasion to whip up sentiment against the
secular government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who supports
America's war on Islamic extremism.
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"May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't." -General George S. Patton

Psalm 82-8: Arise, O God, judge the earth, for You inherit all the nations.