Amid Anti-Americanism, Emergency Policy Fine-tuning between Korea and US

South Korea and the US have decided to hold "Two plus two high-level talks" early this week and discuss countermeasures in order to prevent the spread of rising anti-American sentiment, which has deepened after the acquittals of two US soldiers charged with the death of two teenage girls.

In the high level talks, Deputy minister-level officials of Seoul’s Defense Ministry and Foreign Affairs-Trade Ministry and Evans Revere, the deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Seoul, Korea and Eighth U.S. Army Commander Lt. Gen. Charles C. Campbell are expected to discuss ways to "improve" the agreement governing the legal status of the 37,000 US troops stationed here and to prevent similar cases from occurring.

In addition, Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State, who will visit Korea on December 10 after his schedule in Japan, is scheduled to be in consultation with senior Korean government officials over issues such as North Korea’s nuclear program, anti-Americanism in Korea, and ways to improve the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

Meanwhile, US representatives including Henry Hyde (Republican), chairman of the House International Relations Committee, who were supposed to visit Korea on December 7 canceled their visit. As a result, their expected courtesy call on the December 7 morning to President Kim Dae-jung was also called off.

In a press release, the US Embassy in Seoul announced that Mr. Henry Hyde postponed his call because he did not want to get attentions from anti-US protesters in South Korea.

But Senator Daniel Inouye(Democrat from Hawaii) of the Senate Appropriation Committee and Senator Ted Stevens(Republican from Alaska) will visit Korea on December 8 as scheduled. They will pay a courtesy call to President Kim and meet with Choi Sung-hong, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Lee Jun, Minister of Defense on the 9th.

Young-Sik Kim spear@donga.com