SEOUL - The prospect of John Bolton, fiery US ambassador to the United Nations, careering through Seoul, making speeches denouncing North Korea, attempting to talk South Korean leaders into hard-nosed enforcement of the UN sanctions against the North, was more than South Korean officials could bear.
A day or two after getting word that Bolton would be coming to Seoul, his visit was abruptly canceled, even as underlings at the US Embassy were trying to negotiate a schedule.
The reason ostensibly was that he would be tied up giving a
lecture or two in Japan, but behind the cancellation was one simple fact: President Roh Moo-hyun simply did not want to see the man, and Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon was off to Beijing trying to work out how to keep North Korean leader Kim Jong-il from ordering up yet another nuclear test.
Ban, who takes over as secretary general of the UN at the end of the year, saw no reason he should have to put up with Bolton before then. South Korean officials let it be known that they viewed him, if not exactly "PNG" - persona non grata, as one policymaker once described him, only half-jokingly - at least as a loose cannon whose presence would roil the waters while the government is making a valiant attempt at appeasing all sides at once: the Bush administration as it presses for a forceful response, North Korea as it threatens unspecified reprisals if the South aligns with the US on sanctions, and conservative and radical critics at home.
Asia Times
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
