High-ranking NKorean defector says US-SKorea trade accord will stymie NKorea

NKorean defector calls for US-SKorea trade accord

WASHINGTON — The highest-ranking North Korean official ever to defect to South Korea said Wednesday that Washington and Seoul should settle a stalled free trade accord as a way to thwart the North’s efforts to weaken their alliance.

Hwang Jang Yop, speaking to reporters and academics during a rare visit to Washington, also said he has no regrets about defecting from the North in 1997. He said the heavy security under which he lives in South Korea to protect against assassination is better than “a life of servitude as a high-ranked slave” in the North.

“Everybody other than (leader) Kim Jong Il in North Korea are slaves, serfs,” Hwang said through an interpreter.

Hwang, the North’s former parliamentary speaker, said he decided to flee the North after Kim’s policies led to mass starvation in the mid-1990s.

His visit to Washington comes as negotiators work to restart international talks meant to rid the North of its nuclear weapons program.

The best way to isolate and frustrate the North, Hwang said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, is for the United States and South Korea to strengthen their sometimes rocky alliance by ratifying the free trade agreement that has languished since the countries signed it in 2007.

The ambitious accord to cut tariffs and other commerce barriers has yet to be ratified, in part because of U.S. demands that South Korea address its wide surplus in auto trade.

Hwang had been close to North Korean founder Kim Il Sung and was considered a mentor to his son and political heir, Kim Jong Il.

Hwang said that change in the North can only come through diplomacy and economic strategies, not military force. Instead of targeting Kim, Hwang said, the North Korean people should be told of their own country’s human rights abuses and of the democratic freedoms they could enjoy under a different system.

North Korea quit six-nation nuclear disarmament talks last year to protest international condemnation of a rocket launch. It later conducted its second nuclear test.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner urged the North on Wednesday to return to negotiations and to abandon its nuclear programs.

Hwang was making his second trip to the United States. South Korea’s previous liberal governments restricted his overseas travel because of worries that his criticism of North Korea could complicate efforts to reconcile with Pyongyang, and he could become a target for assassination. South Korea’s current conservative government lifted that ban, saying it amounted to a human rights violation.

Hwang became animated when asked about South Korean reports that Kim Jong Il probably will visit China soon, a trip that could lead to the country’s return to nuclear disarmament talks. Waving his hands, Hwang said it did not matter if such a trip happened, or what Kim and Chinese leaders might say.

The best way to help the Korean Peninsula, Hwang said, would be an end to Kim’s rule and the introduction of a market economy in the North.