South Korean activists scuffled with police outside the US embassy in Seoul today as the top US envoy for Asia held talks to try to defuse the North Korean nuclear crisis.
About 60 left-wing protesters chanted "Yankee Go Home" and criticised South Korean president-elect Mr Roh Moo-hyun for his efforts to tone down anti-US protests that have surged in South Korea since last year.
Mr James Kelly, the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, was winding up a two-day visit to Seoul to discuss ways to thwart North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.
Many of the protesters' placards and slogans echoed communist Pyongyang's anti-US statements. "Kelly: Immediately Halt Policies to Stifle North Korea", read a placard carried by the protesters.
Mr Kelly visited Pyongyang in October and said after meeting senior officials that the North had admitted enriching uranium in a covert atomic arms programme.
That admission and a US decision to halt fuel aid triggered the crisis in which North Korea became the first country to pull out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Protesters mixed demands for a withdrawal of the 37,000 US troops stationed in South Korea with calls for the revision of the bilateral Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which covers the legal status of those US forces.
In a move likely to anger the anti-US movement, Mr Roh, a former dissident lawyer, is due to tour the main US military base in Seoul tomorrow. Mr Roh takes office on February 25th.