EOUL, South Korea, Dec. 3 ?In their first debate as they entered the South Korean presidential campaign's final stretch, the two leading candidates advocated sharply different approaches toward North Korea tonight, and called for tighter regulations governing American troops here.
With opinion polls suggesting the race is too close to call, the governing party candidate, Roh Moo Hyun, stoutly defended President Kim Dae Jung's so-called sunshine policy of engagement with North Korea, suggesting at one point that the only thing that needed changing was the policy's name.
Lee Hoi Chang, meanwhile, Mr. Roh's main conservative rival, relentlessly attacked Mr. Kim's approach to North Korea. Mr. Lee repeatedly alluded to recent revelations that North Korea had been secretly developing nuclear weapons and said that if he won on Dec. 19, he would make a clean break with recent policies that sought to obtain the cooperation of the impoverished North by providing economic aid.
"I have a very definite policy on North Korea," said Mr. Lee, a former Supreme Court justice, suggesting that he would continue to send food and other goods to meet civilian needs. "I will stop money support," he added "because money can subsidize nuclear development. That is why we must stop it. This is also a part of an effort to make North Korea abandon nuclear weapons."
Both Mr. Lee and Mr. Roh, along with a third candidate who took part in the two-hour debate, Kwon Young Gil, said they would seek to renegotiate the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, governing the legal rights and behavior of the 37,000 American troops stationed in South Korea.
Mr. Lee, the candidate of the conservative Grand National Party, narrowly lost to Mr. Kim in the last presidential election, five years ago. South Korean presidents are limited by the Constitution to one term. Opinion polls are banned by law in the final phase of the campaign, but the last published polls indicated that Mr. Roh had a narrow lead.
The American troop presence here has become the focus of an increasingly intense protest movement, which began last summer when two teenage girls were crushed to death by an American armored vehicle. The protests have accelerated since the acquittal late last month of the two army sergeants involved.
The servicemen's trials here, conducted in accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement, involved all-American juries, which has incensed many here, fueling calls to renogotiate the agreement.
With anti-American feeling rising, the leading presidential candidates have said South Korea should renegotiate the agreement. Today, President Kim added his voice to the calls.
He noted that it was revised last year to bring it to the level of those pacts with Japan and Germany, "but with this incident as a lesson, the two sides must work more closely to improve SOFA further and develop the Korea-U.S. alliance in a future-orientated direction," Mr. Kim was quoted as telling his cabinet in the transcript released by his office.
Mr. Kim also took pains today to defend his country's alliance with the United States. "Constructive criticism of U.S. policies is permissible, but a tide of indiscriminate anti-American sentiment is of no benefit to the national interest," he said.
Mr. Roh, a political heir to Mr. Kim, with similar roots in center-left social activism, was even more assertive on the Status of Forces Agreement, and appeared to be trying to channel some of the public anger into his campaign. "As a presidential candidate, is it necessary or appropriate to sign on to a plea?" he said. "The SOFA agreement should be amended, although one thing is for sure: If I become president, I will definitely correct our chronic attitude of accepting" American demands "without criticism."
Throughout his presidency, Mr. Kim has been an ardent advocate of dialogue with North Korea, which won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000. His stance, though, has sometimes contributed to diplomatic tensions with the Bush administration, which has consistently taken a more skeptical approach to North Korea.
For weeks, Mr. Lee has attacked the sunshine policy, characterizing it as na?e, and has tried to turn the news of North Korea's nuclear program into a liability for Mr. Roh. "We've had five years of the sunshine policy, but behind our backs, North Korea was working on nuclear weapons," Mr. Lee said.
In reply, Mr. Roh said his views on the need for American troops had changed long ago, and he struggled to establish some credentials on national security issues. "After that I had some political experience and came to know better," he said. "I came to know that it is necessary for U.S. troops to stay in Korea. That was a mistake of my judgment."
