THE WASHINGTON SUMMIT : N. Korea Decries Gorbachev-Roh Meeting

TOKYO —  North Korea reacted with anger Friday to news that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev will meet Roh Tae Woo, president of its hated rival, South Korea.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman, quoted by the official North Korean news agency, said the meeting Monday in San Francisco will have “a serious political consequence” for the future of divided Korea.

“We consider that the president of the Soviet Union, an ally of ours, is quite able to analyze and judge what a serious political consequence will be entailed by his meeting with Roh Tae Woo, who is seeking only the split of Korea,” the spokesman declared.

The spokesman said the meeting will be tantamount to the Soviet Union’s recognizing South Korea and could lead to a “freezing of the division of our country.”

“We do not think (the meeting) will take place,” said the Foreign Ministry spokesman. “We have not yet received official information regarding this from the Soviet side.”

The Soviet Union is Pyongyang’s main diplomatic ally and provider of arms. News of Roh’s meeting with Gorbachev was announced in Seoul on Thursday.

In the past year, Soviet trade and other contacts with Seoul have ballooned. In March, Gorbachev met a senior South Korean official and was quoted as saying that nothing stood in the way of full diplomatic ties.

Roh has said the purpose of Seoul’s diplomatic offensive toward the Soviet Union, China and North Korea’s East European allies is to persuade Pyongyang to accept detente on the peninsula after decades of armed confrontation.

South Korea’s influential national newspaper, Dong-A Ilbo, reported Friday that the Roh-Gorbachev meeting is a step toward Moscow’s establishing full diplomatic relations with South Korea and that Roh intends, at their San Francisco meeting, to invite Gorbachev to Seoul.

“There is a high possibility that Gorbachev will come to South Korea when he visits Japan next year,” the paper said, quoting a high government source. Gorbachev plans to visit Japan in April.

“The upcoming summit meeting (between Roh and Gorbachev) stands on the precondition that the two nations will enter into formal diplomatic relations. The exact timing will have to await the result of the meeting, but the two leaders are expected to agree to speedily open full relations.”

South Korea has had no diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, which occupied North Korea in 1945 at the end of World War II and helped set up a Communist government there.