President-elect's team tells Unification Ministry to slow inter-Korean economic projects

Posted on : 2008-01-07 21:46 KST Modified on : 2008-01-07 21:46 KST

President-elect Lee Myung-bak's transition team Monday asked the Unification Ministry to link inter-Korean economic cooperation projects to nuclear disarmament negotiations, signaling a possible slow-down of major projects.

"Humanitarian projects such as the reunion of family members living separately in the two Koreas can be continuously pushed for, but economic cooperation projects should be carried out in parallel with the pace of North Korea nuclear talks," a key member of the team quoted his team as saying during the ministry's policy briefing. The request means that incoming government will put to a halt proposed inter-Korean economic projects requiring an enormous budget until any breakthrough is made in the nuclear disarmament process.

The president-elect who is to take office in February has vowed to take a tougher stance on North Korea while seeking to strengthen Seoul's alliance with Washington. The six-nation denuclearization process remain bogged down after North Korea failed to meet the Dec. 31 deadline for disabling its nuclear facilities and giving a full account of its nuclear weapons programs. In its first comment on the missed deadline, the North said on Friday it almost completed the disabling and gave a full account to the United States in November. Washington denied the claim, however.

The North's Foreign Ministry spokesman said Pyongyang was forced to slow its disablement because the U.S. and other parties to the agreement failed to live up to their promises to provide energy aid and political concessions. The other parties are China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

The transition team's move is expected to slow down key inter-Korean economic projects that had received a fresh impetus after the second inter-Korean summit in October.

Among the projects in which momentum may slow are the reconnection of severed cross-border railways, the second-stage construction of Kaesong industrial complex and the construction of a joint fishing area along the disputed inter-Korean border in the West Sea.

During the briefing session, the Unification Ministry proposed that plans for on-site surveys and various working-level meetings for already agreed upon economic projects be held as scheduled this year, ministry officials said. The ministry also claimed it should not be slimmed or merged into the foreign ministry citing the peculiarity of the inter-Korean affairs, the officials said.

Lee's spokesman said Sunday the president-elect seeks to reduce the number of central government offices from the current 18 to between 15 or 12. The Unification Ministry is known to be one of the ministries facing reorganization.



SEOUL, Jan. 7 (Yonhap)