Washington and Seoul also have sharply contrasting visions of how to deal with North Korea as it plows ahead with its nuclear weapons program.
President Bush says he has no plans to invade but has made no secret of his loathing for Kim Jong Il and his preference for a change of regime. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is anxious to avoid a collapse that could send North Korean refugees streaming across the border.
"The possibility of North Korea's collapse is very low," Roh said Wednesday during a visit to Germany, according to his office here. "And we don't have any intention to encourage it, either."
After visiting Berlin, Roh said he did not envision anything like the collapse of the Berlin Wall on the Korean peninsula.
German reunification resulted in "large costs and many aftereffects," Roh said. "I believe unification of the Koreas will proceed in a very stable process after predictable stages."
The decision to pull out of the plan won praise from the South Korean daily Hankyoreh, which in an editorial Friday said: "Waiting for the North Korean system to collapse or looking like you are trying to make that happen does not in any way help the work of unification."
South Korean officials in recent months have also publicly expressed fears that the U.S. could drag the country into a conflict with China.
