CAMBRIDGE, England -- Since January 2001, relations between Pyongyang and Seoul have been tense. The various confidence-building measures agreed to at the summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in June 2000 came to a halt after newly elected U.S. President George W. Bush refused to continue the U.S.-North Korean negotiations initiated by his predecessor, Bill Clinton.
Angered by the U.S. move, North Korean leaders criticized their southern counterparts for not repudiating the United States' new position. Things were not helped when, after the U.S. ended its silence, the Bush administration's offer to talk any place any time without conditions turned out to have quite stringent conditions, including an insistence that such talks address the question of conventional forces on the Korean Peninsula. This issue had previously been accepted as one to be addressed solely by the two Korean governments as it involves sensitive questions of sovereignty.
The Korean Peninsula's political situation has been largely determined by U.S. domestic politics. With the start of the Bush administration, the U.S. far right came out of the closet and reignited a crusade against communism, focusing on North Korea and long-suffering Cuba.