Lacking Vision?

Andreas Zumach is a Geneva-based UN correspondent for the German newspaper die tageszeitung.

What has Ban's policy been as South Korea Foreign Minster so far on North Korea?

The problem is that there is no clear profile on his policy except that he is an efficient manager and mediator but he has never shown any political convictions, other than that he has been very close to whatever the US foreign policy was for the last 25 years.

Some people say that he is the architect of the so-called sunshine policy with North Korea do you think he will adopt a harder line as requested by the US?

I am concerned that under the impact of yesterday's nuclear test by North Koreans and because of the pressure from the Bush administration, he will adopt a harder line. We could see already for the last year that the South Korean government has not continued the original approach on the sunshine policy as it has originally adopted it because the Bush administration clearly didn't support that.

What affect will Ban's nomination have on the current crisis?

In the best case, he might be able to get the six nation talks going again and he might be able to move the Bush administration to do the one thing that would be absolutely necessary to come to a diplomatic solution, which is to give Pyongyang a nuclear non-aggression guarantee -- something the Clinton administration did back in 1994 and the Bush administration renounced the guarantee in 2003. That's when the problems began.

Do you think Ban's nomination might have provoked North Korea nuclear test?

There are no indications that the timing of the nuclear test has anything to do with the election of Ban Ki Moon, simply because the North Korean government could not have guessed the development of the selection process for the Secretary General at the UN so for the timing I think it is rather a coincidence.

What has made Ban so popular with the UN Security Council members?

It has been the smoothest selection process, compared to the former seven secretaries. This seems to be good for the UN, but I disagree, because the main reason for this process has been that Ban Ki Moon is the smallest common denominator between two most powerful members of the Security Council -- the United States and China. I think this is not enough for the other 190 member countries of the UN.

I am concerned that he will continue to conduct his policies very closely along the US foreign policy on the one hand, and on the other hand he will avoid anything to criticize China and he will not highlight the importance of human rights as strongly as Kofi Annan has done, he will most certainly not highlight the important role of non-government organizations for international politics and for the UN as Kofi Annan has done. I think he will continue to conduct his new job in the way that he has conducted all the other jobs, which is to avoid conflict.

So you don't think he will be able to set his own stamp?

I am concerned that this will not happen. I am always prepared to be positively surprised, but so-far the 35 years of his political and diplomatic career don't give us any indications that besides being a conduit of diplomacy and a strong and hard worker, he has not developed his own political positions, let alone visions.

If you look at the necessity to reform the United Nations, we still have this broad political reform agenda that Kofi Annan put on the political agenda last year which still need to be decided on and implemented. Here we would need a secretary general that followed the same line that Kofi Annan put forward, but I am concerned that Ban Ki Moon will only be concerned with those management reforms that Washington is pushing for.

Do you think he has been nominated because of his experience on the Korean peninsula?

Ban Ki Moon has been nominated because, firstly, China prevented the original Washington intention to have an eastern European by threatening a hard veto against any non-Asian candidate. Secondly, because Washington and Beijing agreed that it should not be an Indian in this position and then if you look at the field of candidates from Asia that were left, Ban Ki Moon seems to be the one that fits the interests of Washington and Beijing most.