South Korea leader seeks unity and prestige in US

4 May AFP

South Korea’s new leader visits Washington next week on a mission to present a united front to a bellicose North Korea and also to safeguard her country’s increasingly outsized role in the world.

President Park Geun-Hye took office in February as the first woman to lead a Northeast Asian nation. But she has had little time to highlight her personal story, with her tenure quickly consumed by soaring tension with North Korea.

After a stop in New York, Park will meet President Barack Obama on Tuesday and address a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday. The two countries cleared the way for a smooth visit by putting off a decision on a nuclear accord, one of few major items of disagreement between the allies.

US experts predict that Obama will offer Park the limelight and follow her lead on North Korea, mindful that Pyongyang would seize on any sign of discord and try to portray the conservative leader as a puppet of Washington.

“I would say 90 percent of the US North Korea policy now is simply staying tied tightly with the South Koreans, whichever direction they want to go in,” said Victor Cha, who was former president George W. Bush’s top aide on Korea. Park has taken a firm stand against any concessions to North Korea but has also been careful not to close the door to future talks -- which US officials say is ultimately the sole, albeit not ideal, way to deal with Pyongyang.

North Korea, led by the young Kim Jong-Un, in recent months carried out an atomic test and -- in rhetoric shrill even by Pyongyang’s standards -- threatened nuclear war against the United States.

The Obama administration sent nuclear-capable stealth B-2 bombers as part of recent war games with South Korea, amid growing but still isolated calls by conservatives for Seoul to develop its own nuclear weapons.