Two Koreas Agree to First Summit Ever

WASHINGTON —  The leaders of North and South Korea tentatively agreed Saturday to an unprecedented summit meeting, but the Clinton Administration cautioned that the United States will continue to maintain pressure on North Korea to freeze its nuclear program.

One senior Administration official hailed as a “positive development” the reports that South Korean President Kim Young Sam had accepted an offer from his North Korean counterpart, Kim Il Sung, to meet. Such a summit would be the first between the leaders of the two nations since they were divided into a Communist North and a pro-Western South in 1945.

Former President Jimmy Carter relayed the offer to the South Koreans after several days of meetings in the North. Speaking in Seoul, Carter said the North Korean leader had told him that he wanted the summit to be arranged without “extensive delay.” But there was no indication from either country of when such a meeting might be held.

Carter is expected to be in Washington today to brief senior Administration officials, including National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, about his trip, government sources said.

While U.S. officials welcomed the prospect of a Korean summit, they said it would be premature to abandon efforts to impose U.N. sanctions against North Korea as long as it fails to provide verifiable evidence that it is taking no further steps toward developing nuclear weapons.

In a statement released through the White House press office Saturday, the Administration said it is continuing to explore sanctions against North Korea. But it indicated that Clinton would be willing to reopen broad political talks with North Korea if it agrees to freeze all suspect activities at its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon.

“There is an internal logic to this,” the official said. “You can continue to explore diplomatic channels and dialogue so long as you are sure they are not moving forward on their nuclear program. That’s why we’ve laid down such precise conditions.”

Reiterating its earlier position, the Administration said the United States needs evidence that North Korea has stopped refueling its reactor and is not reprocessing its spent fuel into weapons-grade plutonium.

Though not a condition of further talks, the statement said the Administration would pursue an accounting of possible previous diversions of nuclear fuel if discussions with North Korea resume. A White House official said the United States would seek “special inspections” of North Korean nuclear facilities to account for fuel that may have been diverted into weapons production.

On Thursday, Carter reported that North Korea’s Kim had agreed to freeze his nation’s nuclear program if the United States reopened talks.

The senior Administration official said Saturday that the United States would now seek to explore through diplomatic channels whether the North Korean “freeze” offer meets Clinton’s specific conditions.

In Seoul, Carter continued to criticize the pursuit of U.N. sanctions against North Korea--a posture that has discomfited Administration officials in Washington. Carter had said Friday that Clinton would shelve the pursuit of sanctions against North Korea while the Administration assessed the offer of a freeze. Clinton forcefully repudiated those comments and insisted that the effort to secure sanctions would move forward.

On Saturday, however, Carter again counseled against sanctions, saying they would be “counterproductive” and “an insult” to the North Koreans, according to wire reports. “This is, in my opinion, something impossible for them to accept,” Carter said.

The proposal for a North-South meeting in Korea drew positive reactions “from almost all South Korean political and social groups,” the Associated Press reported in Seoul.