Obama sets date for US envoy's NKorea visit
Posted: 19 November 2009 1501 hrs

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SEOUL: President Barack Obama announced Thursday a US envoy would visit North Korea early next month, as he joined South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak in urging the communist state back to nuclear talks.

But differences remained between the two leaders on a lucrative free trade pact which is awaiting ratification by a reluctant US Congress, though Lee offered to ease the anxiety of beleaguered US automakers over the deal.

A friendly, warm summit at the Blue House presidential residence contrasted with the stiff formality of Obama's meetings in Beijing, and came on the last day of an Asian tour designed to revive US diplomacy in the region.

In a later visit to a US military base at Osan, south of Seoul, Obama told some of the 28,500 US troops in the country that their sacrifices guaranteed South Korea's thriving economy and lifestyle, before leaving for home on Air Force One.

US envoy Stephen Bosworth's mission will be to coax the North back to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks which it quit in April, a month before staging a second atomic weapons test.

"We will be sending Ambassador Bosworth to North Korea on December 8 to engage in direct talks with the North Koreans," Obama told a joint press conference.

Obama and Lee expressed close agreement about their approach to the North, while Pyongyang in a commentary Thursday accused the allies of stoking tensions.

The North has made "sincere" efforts to defuse tensions on the peninsula and improve cross-border relations, Rodong Sinmun, the North's ruling communist party newspaper, said in a commentary.

"However, the bellicose forces of the United States and South Korea are going ahead with frantic moves for a war of aggression against the DPRK (North Korea)," it said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il said last month his country is ready to return to the six-nation talks but only if the bilateral discussions with the United States are satisfactory.

The talks, which group the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan, began more than six years ago.

Obama condemned what he called a pattern in which the North behaves provocatively for a while, returns to talks and then walks out again when it fails to secure further concessions.

"The door is open to resolving these issues peacefully, for North Korea to see over time the reduction of sanctions and its increasing integration into the international community," Obama said.

"But it will only happen if North Korea is taking serious steps around the nuclear issue."

South Korea had been hoping for a more aggressive effort by Obama to force ratification of the free trade pact by the US Congress, where support for open commerce has weakened amid the deep economic crisis.

In a bid to push the process forward, Lee for the first time said he is open to more talks to ease concerns among US automakers that the deal signed in June 2007 is unbalanced.

"If the US thinks there is a problem in the auto (sector), we are ready to discuss it again because we have also forged an FTA (Free Trade Agreement) with the European Union, one of the world's biggest auto-producing regions," Lee said.

Obama told reporters several issues still needed to be worked out before Congressional ratification.

"I told President Lee and his team that I am committed to see the two countries work together to move this agreement forward," he said.

But he gave no time frame for Congress to ratify the deal.

South Korea has shown impatience at US efforts to renegotiate parts of the pact to give US beef and auto exporters greater access to Asia's fourth-largest economy.

Obama was given a red-carpet welcome at the presidential Blue House before the summit. Smiling broadly, he shook hands with dozens of flag-waving children assembled on the manicured lawns.

South Korea deployed 13,000 police and soldiers to assure security but pro-US demonstrators heavily outnumbered protesters in central Seoul Thursday.

In a sign of their easy friendship, Lee presented Obama with a taekwondo outfit including an honorary black belt as a memento of his stay, because the president learned the martial art as a younger man.

The president will also take home a Korean recipe book for his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama.

Obama's South Korea visit wrapped up his a week-long debut Asian tour, which also saw him visit Japan, the APEC summit in Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing.

He told the troops that his visit would deliver a "safer, more prosperous world for all of us".

- AFP/ir