SEOUL/WASHINGTON, 7 December 2003 — Some 3,000 people rallied near the US Embassy here yesterday to protest the South Korean government’s decision to send troops to Iraq, witnesses said.
The protesters braved freezing temperatures and gusting winds to chant anti-US and anti-government slogans on the pavement, some 150 meters away from the US Embassy compound.
“No troops to Iraq,” they shouted while waving banners. The protestors included activists, workers, students, teachers, farmers, street vendors and representatives for the urban poor.
They also chanted slogans opposing a free trade agreement with Chile and opening the market to agricultural imports.
Companies of riot police, who outnumbered the demonstrators, formed human barriers to block roads leading to the embassy.
Last month South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun said he would consider sending around 3,000 troops, mostly non-combatants, to Iraq -- far fewer than the US requested.
More than 400 non-combatants from South Korea are already in Iraq.
The sensitive US request for more troops has split South Korean public opinion and the issue is heating up after an attack killed two South Koreans in Iraq and injured two others six days earlier.
The four electrical company workers from Seoul were ambushed in their car on a highway near the Iraqi town of Tikrit.
In an unrelated development, US Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed North Korea with his Chinese counterpart but there is still no firm date for a second round of six-party nuclear talks.
In a telephone call to Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, “We had a discussion about the progress we were making toward the next six-party meeting, which we hope will be in the not-too-distant future,” Powell told reporters.
But when asked about a firm date for the talks, he replied: “Not yet, no.”
US President George W. Bush and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao are expected to discuss the issue when they meet at the White House next Tuesday.
The US, South Korea and Japan held working level discussions in Washington this week on North Korea but those did not produce a breakthrough either.
State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said that despite the lack of a date, the US-hosted meetings were useful. The US, South Korea and Japan are “ready to convene a second round before the end of the year and believe that is possible,” he said.
“I think it was understood that the timing of the talks is a decision on which all parties must agree and that North Korea has not yet agreed to specific dates for the talks,” he said.
But other US and Asian officials, while not ruling out a second round this month, have said it looks likely the next round will be delayed until January or February.
US officials said the US and other countries involved in the planning — China, Russia, South Korea and Japan — are trying to agree in advance on a statement that would be issued at the conclusion of a second round of talks.
This means the results would be “pre-cooked” even before the parties convene.
A first round of six-way talks was held in Beijing in August but ended inconclusively.
The current nuclear crisis began in October 2002 when U.S. officials said Pyongyang had privately admitted pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons program that violated its international agreements.
