THE RISING EAST

By Richard Halloran

Intelligence agencies from Seoul to Singapore, not to say those in the U.S., would pay dearly for the answer to perhaps the most intriguing question in Asia arising from the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq: What does the "Dear Leader" of North Korea, Kim Jong Il, like Saddam a charter member of President George W. Bush's "axis of evil," think of this turn of events?

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), through which the secretive Hermit Kingdom communicates with the rest of the world, was defiant several days after Saddam's arrest last weekend, linking Iraq with North Korea as the U.S. has "designated the Middle East and Northeast Asia as major targets in realizing its ambition for world domination."

Surrounded by his top military commanders, North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il visited Kim Hyong Jik Military Medical University in an undisclosed location in North Korea on April 3. The Korean leader may have been taken aback when he saw the pictures of a shaken Saddam Hussein being dragged from a filthy hole not far from one of the many opulent palaces he lived in while he was ruling Iraq. Advertiser library photo ð Jan. 2003

It seems fair to speculate that Kim Jong Il, who lives in luxury as did Saddam, may have been taken aback when he saw the pictures of a shaken Saddam being dragged from a filthy hole not far from one of his former palaces.

That reaction may have been intensified by pictures of Saddam being treated like a common criminal — giving him a medical inspection, looking for lice in his hair, making him shave his scruffy beard, and taking the identification picture that an American TV commentator called "the mother of all mug shots."

The "Dear Leader" has probably gone to some lengths to prevent the North Korean people from seeing those pictures of Saddam's ignominious surrender and the message to be drawn from them. Saddam and his ilk are quite willing for others to die for their cause but when it came to his own end, he quit without a struggle. He was no honorable warrior.

It remains to be seen whether all this will make the North Koreans more amenable in negotiating with the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China and Russia in the six-party talks intended to dissuade the "Dear Leader" from his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons — or will make him more adamant?

North Korea, the formal name of which is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), has been negotiating with the U.S. through KCNA. In its latest pronouncement, KCNA said: "As the U.S. urges the DPRK to dismantle its nuclear weapons completely, verifiably and irreversibly, the latter has the same right to demand that the U.S., the dialogue partner, give it complete, verifiable and irreversible security assurances."

North Korea has been demanding that the U.S. agree to a non-aggression treaty in which the U.S. would pledge not to attack. The Bush administration has refused because it has next to no chance of getting a treaty through the U.S. Senate. President Bush, however, has said repeatedly the U.S. will not invade North Korea. Press reports say the U.S. has offered to sign a non-aggression pledge along with the others in the six-party talks.

President Bush was non-committal in his press conference this week, other than to emphasize the diplomatic approach: "In North Korea, we're now in the process of using diplomatic means and persuasion to convince Kim Jong Il to get rid of his nuclear weapons program." Referring to Kim Jong Il, the president said: "I hope, of course, he listens."

KCNA said if the U.S. would accept what North Korea has called "the principle of simultaneous actions," then "the DPRK is ready to respond to it with the elimination of all its nuclear weapons." The North Koreans warned, however, that delay "would only result in compelling the DPRK to steadily increase its nuclear deterrent force."

That there may have been a tie between Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il was rumored in the days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. A wealthy entrepreneur in Hong Kong, Stanley Ho Hung-sun, was quoted in the South China Morning Post as saying that Kim Jong Il had offered Saddam asylum in North Korea.

Ho, who was known to have business connections with Pyong- yang, said then: "North Korea is willing to give Saddam and his family a mountain in North Korea."

Kim Jong Il may be regretting that he made the offer, if indeed it was genuine. As Pravda, the Russian newspaper, asserted about the same time: "One thing is perfectly clear now: That the North Korean leader would not like to share Saddam's fate."

Richard Halloran is a former New York Times correspondent in Asia.