http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/27/world/27CND-KOREA.html?searchpv=site03?ex=984543291&ei=1&en=6d62054d776bce1f

SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 27 — Less than a week before he meets President Bush in Washington, the president of South Korea today publicly took Russia's side in the debate over Washington's plan for a national missile defense.

A joint communiqué issued by President Kim Dae Jung with the visiting president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, declared that the 1972 ABM treaty limiting anti-missile defenses — which would be threatened by Washington's project — is a "cornerstone of strategic stability" and that it should not only be preserved, but also "strengthened."

The statement by Mr. Kim — whose country is protected with the help of 37,000 American troops — was one of the strongest declarations to date by one of America's Asian allies, and it linked South Korea to European powers who have expressed concern that the United States was pressing forward with missile defenses in a manner that could inspire a new round of nuclear competition by Russia, China and South Asia.

President Bush has asserted that he would withdraw from the 1972 ABM Treaty if necessary in order to build national missile defenses capable of protecting the United States against the threat of a limited ballistic missile attack from countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

It was not immediately clear why Mr. Kim decided to identify with Moscow's view of the issue.

But as the Bush administration shows signs of doubting North Korea's sincerity in dismantling its weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Putin has played an energetic role to push rapprochement forward on the Korean peninsula, flying to Pyongyang last July to meet the reclusive North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, and now preparing to bring him to Moscow for more talks on how to reduce tensions.

It is also possible that the South Korean president's criticism reflects the general concern in Asia that the Bush administration's missile defense plans will isolate China by rendering its nuclear arsenal ineffective.

For South Korea, China has also played a constructive role in working for Korean rapprochement, treating Kim Jong-il to a tour of booming Shanghai this winter and doing similar missionary work with North Korea's hard-line military leaders. Li Peng, the second ranking member of the ruling Politburo in Beijing, is due in Seoul next month for a state visit.

Today's statement cataloged the arms control treaties or agreements that remain unfulfilled as a result of objections to their ratification in the United States. The principle outstanding accords are Start II, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that would cut cold war nuclear arsenals in half, and another that would to ban nuclear testing. Russia has ratified both, and Mr. Kim, in a summit meeting that was largely devoted to business and trade issues, welcomed Russia's act.

Though neither president mentioned the United States by name and, during a brief news conference on Mr. Putin's first day of meetings here, steered questions to economic matters, the object of the communiqué's criticism was unmistakable.

"The Russian Federation and the Republic of Korea agreed that the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty is the cornerstone of strategic stability and an important foundation of international efforts on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation," the joint statement said. "Both sides expressed their hope that the Start II Treaty will enter into force as soon as possible and that as soon as possible after that, the Start III treaty will be signed and that the ABM Treaty will be preserved and strengthened."

In a reference to the test ban treaty, the statement by the Russian and South Korean leaders said they "appealed to other countries to ratify the treaty without any delays and they also appealed to those countries whose ratification is needed for it to come into effect."

Since he won election a year ago, Mr. Putin has undertaken a diplomatic campaign to persuade the United States to forgo its large-scale missile defense plans and instead develop regional and mobile missile defenses that could be brought to bear against missile threats from rogue states. Russia presented its concept for such a plan to NATO's secretary general, Lord Robertson, in Moscow last week.

Russia has also sought to show that more intensive diplomacy, such as Mr. Kim's opening to North Korea, might go a long way in reducing the threat from rogue states. To that end, Mr. Putin also has been courting North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il, in an effort, thus far unsuccessful, to persuade him to abandon his ballistic missile program.

After a day in which Mr. Putin and the South Korean leader discussed the progress between north and south, along with trade, investment and new plans to link both Koreas with Russian and Europe via the trans-Siberian railway, Mr. Putin tonight said Russia was looking for a constructive role for Moscow in linking the economies of North and South Korea through rail and energy projects.

"There is nobody who can lose in this process," he said.

In a toast tonight at a banquet in the ornate presidential palace with sweeping blue-tiled rooflines, Mr. Putin predicted that the north-south dialogue that Mr. Kim engineered last year would "lead to reunification of the Korean nation."

In between the banquets and toasts, however, Mr. Putin's visit here has been a hard slog of negotiations over how to resolve Russia's $1.8 billion debt to Seoul, how to overcome formidable obstacles to building new railway links that still exist on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone, where more than 1.7 million North and South Korean troops still face each other in a high state of readiness for war.

Work on one rail line connecting Seoul, Pyongyang and Sinuiji on North Korea's border with China already has begun, but Mr. Putin is lobbying for the $1 billion rehabilitation of a second line northeast to Vladivostok that would connect South Korea's ports and industrial centers with Russia's impoverished Far East.

Mr. Putin said linking both Koreas with the trans-Siberian railway would cut freight deliveries from the Pacific to Europe from 25 to 12 days, while also providing assistance to North Korea, which would reap more than $100 million a year in revenues.

At a lunch with businessmen today, Mr. Putin made it clear that Russia also has high technology products to offer. "Russia can offer state-of-the-art technology," he said. "For example, we can help other countries launch space devices such as satellites."

Mr. Putin was not as successful in selling Russian arms to South Korea, though some military equipment, including tanker aircraft, helicopters and hovercraft, are part of a proposal to sell weapons and raw materials in exchange for reducing Russia's debt.

As the Soviet Union was collapsing, Seoul offered $1.45 billion in credits to Moscow to establish diplomatic relations, thus undercutting one of North Korea's chief patrons. As Russia has failed to repay the credits, interest charges have increased it to $1.8 billion.

(See also - South Korea Now Pulls Back From Russia on Missile Shield)