Analysis: N. Korea angling for Obama's attention

[January 31, 2009]  SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Sharpening its rhetoric, North Korea is trumpeting its refusal to honor accords designed to keep the peace with South Korea - particularly along a disputed maritime border that has long been a flashpoint.

Seoul has scrambled troops to land and sea borders amid signs the communist regime in Pyongyang may be setting the stage for another naval skirmish in the Yellow Sea. But the real focus of North Korea's warning Friday may well be Washington.

The White House says it is still reviewing U.S. policy on North Korea - one item on a long list of foreign and domestic issues clamoring for Barack Obama's attention.

An impatient Pyongyang seems to be trying to move itself to the top of Washington's foreign policy agenda by warning that the two Koreas are at the brink of war because of the hard-line stance of South Korea's pro-U.S. president.

The two Koreas technically remain at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty. In 1991, however, the two signed a pledge to boost reconciliation efforts and refrain from invasion - particularly along their disputed western sea border.

But North Korea's Kim Jong Il, a leader with a flair for drama, knows the value of a naval skirmish or a well-timed missile test to remind the world that his country may be poor but still has the power to cause trouble if it doesn't get its way.

Fifty years ago, North Korea was considered the richer, more advanced of the two Koreas. Today, South Korea's economy ranks 13th in the world while the Stalinist North is one of the poorest nations.

The North's relations with its main ally, China, have cooled somewhat in recent years, and help from Russia has slowed since the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Flooding and mismanagement in the mid-1990s destroyed North Korea's farms and economy, forcing the proud nation to rely on handouts to feed its people.

When then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung ushered in a "sunshine" era of reconciliation a decade ago, Kim Jong Il shook his hand heartily in 2000 and accepted the generous aid that came with it.

But the warming in relations didn't stop the North from building up its military or its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea, population 23 million, may be impoverished, but it has the world's fourth-largest military and an arsenal of long-range missiles, including one believed capable of reaching the United States.

Despite years of international attempts to curb Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, it is believed to have built a handful of atomic weapons. In 2006, it carried out an underground test explosion despite agreeing to abandon its nuclear program.

Taking a new tack, conservative Lee Myung-bak took office as South Korea's president last February with a harder-line policy: No more unconditional aid until the North abides by its commitment to dismantle the nuclear weapons program.

That stance enraged Pyongyang, which cut off reconciliation talks and branded Lee "human scum" and a traitor to Korean reunification.

While Pyongyang fumes, Lee has remained calm and intractable, resulting in a fast deterioration of ties. He said Friday he was hopeful ties would be restored soon, but his recent decision to put the architect of his North Korea policy in charge of the ministry dealing with Pyongyang further angered the North.

"The inter-Korean relations have reached such pass that there is neither way to improve them nor hope to bring them on track," the North warned Friday. "The confrontation between the north and the south in the political and military fields has been put to such extremes that the inter-Korean relations have reached the brink of a war."

The Koreas' western sea border unilaterally drawn by the American-led U.N. command in 1953 has long been a flashpoint between North and South. Every season, fishing boats jockey for prized catches of crab in a tussle that always has the potential for clashes, and the North deliberately sends its warships dipping across a border that it feels was wrongly demarcated.

Twice, in 1999 and 2002, naval skirmishes turned bloody.

A maritime battle between North and South would certainly grab Washington's attention.

After eight years of chilly relations with the Bush administration, North Korea appeared intrigued by Obama's willingness to talk to Pyongyang and even meet with Kim.

However, his new secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has voiced her support for the multilateral process to disarming the North, suggesting the Obama administration won't be a pushover for Pyongyang.

The State Department, which called the North's latest threat "distinctly not helpful," says a review of its North Korea policy is under way.

The worry is that Pyongyang won't wait - and will take dramatic action to get Washington's attention.

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Jean H. Lee is chief of bureau in South Korea for The Associated Press.

[Associated Press; By JEAN H. LEE]

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