A joint statement issued by the two leaders after the meeting papered over differences on how to revive a proposal for Korean peninsula peace talks and a complex agreement to halt North Korean efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
"There's divergence," summed up a senior administration official. "It's still very difficult."
Before resuming either effort, Seoul is demanding an apology from Communist North Korea for the incursion of a spy submarine that ran aground on the South Korean coast in September, setting off a bloody manhunt that left more than two dozen soldiers and civilians from both sides dead.
The United States also has called for an apology. But it wants to revive the nuclear agreement, which promises North Korea two nuclear power stations and oil supplies in exchange for ending its nuclear weapons program. Washington also wants to revive a proposal for talks between the United States, China and the two Koreas to bring a formal end to the Korean War.
Clinton's strong, personal condemnation of the North's actions, however, did manage to smooth over the rift in U.S. relations with Seoul stemming from the submarine incident, according to aides.
Initial American calls for the North and South to use "mutual restraint" in the wake of that incident stunned South Koreans, who felt that their biggest ally was suddenly equating them with their enemy.
"The point is that this meeting did underline the solidarity of the alliance," Winston Lord, the assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, told reporters.
The Kim meeting was one of four one-to-one sessions Clinton had with Asian presidents in a hectic day of personal diplomacy that has become a major part of the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, known as APEC. The forum brings together leaders of 18 major Pacific rim governments, giving them the opportunity to meet individually and as a group.
Earlier yesterday, Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin announced an exchange of Sino-U.S. summits that will take place during the next two years. Clinton also paid a brief courtesy call on Philippine President Fidel Ramos and talked with Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto about trade issues and reducing the visibility of America's military presence on Okinawa, the southern island that is home to most of the U.S. troops in Japan.
Today, Clinton and the other APEC leaders will fly by helicopter to nearby Subic Bay, a one-time U.S. military facility, for a daylong retreat of informal contacts and talks on economic and trade issues that will produce a final communique later in the day.
During the talks with Clinton yesterday, South Korea's Kim "repeatedly underscored the need for a North Korean apology (for the submarine incident) as well as assurances that such an act will not be repeated," a South Korean official traveling with Kim said. Otherwise, he said, "it would be difficult to convince the nation and the National Assembly to agree to proceeding" with the nuclear deal.
South Korea agreed to help finance the North's nuclear energy effort as part of a 1994 accord that was hailed as bringing an end to one of the world's most serious threats of nuclear proliferation.
But Kim stressed in his talks with Clinton that "it is realistically difficult to send engineers to the North to carry out the light-water nuclear reactor project because their safety is not assured," the South Korean official said.
Lord, asked about such concerns, said that "any South Koreans going north would have to be assured of their safety before you would expect them to go."
"But that's not the only aspect of moving ahead" with the nuclear deal, Lord added.
In his talks with Jiang, Clinton won backing for proposed four-party talks to negotiate a formal end to the Korean War more than four decades after a cease-fire ended the fighting there. China's support could help nudge North Korea toward the negotiating table.