The United States may reinstate plans for military maneuvers with South Korea and send Patriot missiles there in response to the latest breakdown in nuclear diplomacy with North Korea, President Clinton said Friday.
Rep. Lee Hamilton, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had urged new defensive preparations for U.S. forces in South Korea. And Seoul, in a turnaround, said it was ready to accept the Patriots and hold the maneuvers.Clinton told reporters he still was hopeful that North Korea would change course and permit full inspection of its nuclear facilities, resume nuclear talks with the South and end its isolation from the world community.
"If North Koreans decide they do not want to pursue that goal, then we'll have to consider what our other options are," Clinton said in an interview with regional reporters at the White House. "The ball is in their court."
In Seoul, a last-minute effort to resolve mounting nuclear tension on the divided Korean peninsula collapsed Saturday when angry North Korean delegates walked out of a crucial border meeting.
The walkout meant the disruption of a U.S.-brokered deal aimed at resolving the yearlong dispute over the Communist North's nuclear program. Inter-Korea dialogue was a key part of the deal.
"The North Korean attitude is regrettable," Song Young-dae, chief South Korean delegate, said after the 55-minute meeting at the border village of Panmunjom.
The White House scheduled a meeting of Clinton's top national security aides for Saturday to discuss the situation in North Korea, where international inspectors this week were blocked from finishing a check on nuclear facilities.
North Korea contends its nuclear sites are only for peaceful research, but the United States and other nations claim they are being used to build nuclear bombs.
The inspection snag has increased the likelihood that the United States and others will push for U.N. economic sanctions against North Korea, a move the communist government in Pyongyang has said would be tantamount to a declaration of war.
The two sides were scheduled to discuss the exchange of high-level envoys.
The exchange of inter-Korea envoys is a key precondition of scheduled U.S.-North Korea high-level talks scheduled in Geneva on Monday.
U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher says these Korean talks will determine whether the scheduled U.S.-North Korean meeting in Geneva goes ahead.