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Koreas salute new UN leader; Bolton harbors doubts
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By Donald Kirk, Special to World Tribune.com
EAST-ASIA-INTEL.COM
Monday, October 9, 2006
SEOUL — On the same day a North Korean defied the world community with an underground nuclear test, a South Korean was named to be the next UN secretary general.
South Korea Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon's skills as the ultimate diplomat may quickly be put to the test when he succeeds Kofi Annan as UN Secretary General at the end of the year, after the endorsement by 14 of the 15 Security Council members, including the veto-wielding “Big Five” — the U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon, second from left, speaks about North Korea's intentions to conduct a nuclear test at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, on Oct. 4.
AP / Yonhap, Baek
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A skillful negotiator who has pursued a soft-line policy of reconciliation with North Korea on behalf of left-leaning President Roh Moo-Hyun, Ban will have to use his clout as secretary general to curb North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
But North Korea announced its nuclear test on the same day Ban won the nomination for the top UN job. Now he will be pressured to persuade the UN not just to condemn the test but also to do something about it.
John Bolton, the hard-line, hard-charging U.S. ambassador to the UN, has given unreserved approval of Ban for secretary general. But Bolton also has misgivings. Pyongyang, after all, seems happy with Ban's nomination and Roh, with Ban's assistance, has pursued a policy of appeasement of the North.
The fact that Ban has won the approbation of powers so diverse as the United States, China and Russia shows that he may hesitate before going to the brink.
While the United States has called for strengthening sanctions already in place against North Korea, Ban sided totally with China in opposing such toughness. In fact, he urged the U.S., in recent talks with Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, to tone down restrictions placed by the Treasury Department on Banco Delta Asia in Macao and other financial firms involved in circulating counterfeit $100 “supernotes” printed in North Korea.
Roh shocked U.S. conservatives by expressing the view that a nuclear test by North Korea might not be that big a deal, and Ban is likely to push that view at the UN in a quest for compromise rather confrontation.
“He doesn’t have charismatic leadership,” said Moon Jung-In, professor of international relations at Yonsei University and an ardent supporter of reconciliation with the North. “He has consensual leadership.”
In the quest for near-universal approbation, Ban pulled out all the stops to get the job with Roh's full backing. He denies, though, that he had paid a visit to the Congo, which happens to hold one of the rotating Security Council seats, to get that country's vote, or that South Korea suddenly came up with aid packages for African countries to lure them onto his side.
For that matter, he saw no connection between Roh’s stopover in Greece last month, enroute to the Asia Europe Meeting in Helsinki and then to see President Bush in Washington, and the fact that a Greek is president of the UN Security Council.
Copyright © 2006 East West
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