hankyoreh

By Lee Jung-ae and Lee Se-young

Prominent lawmakers in the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) issued calls Wednesday for a change in the continuing hardline North Korea policy that has dominated since the North Korean artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island last month.

The debate was touched off by sixth-term GNP Lawmaker Hong Sa-duk.

During a meeting of senior party members Wednesday, Hong said, “The first stage of the Yeonpyeong Island situation was resolved effectively thanks to the president’s strong leadership ability, but everyone will feel that inter-Korean relations cannot be allowed to persist in their present state into the long term.”

“I hope that the chairman and floor leader will consult with the new policy committee director [Lawmaker Shim Jae-chul] and take steps toward playing a leading role in reviewing our North Korea policy,” Hong added.

Hong’s remarks were followed by an outpouring of similar suggestions from other attendees.

Fourth-term lawmaker Nam Kyung-pil said, “It is difficult to deny that the Sunshine Policy and Engagement Policy of previous administrations, while failures in some regards, did achieve some results, and that the current administration’s ‘Vision 3000: Denuclearization and Openness’ principle has also had some results and some shortcomings.”

“What we need now is a willingness to gather the strengths of the different policies, with the ruling and opposition parties putting their heads together to develop a new, composed North Korea strategy that goes beyond the administration level,” Nam added.

Supreme Council member Chung Doo-un said, “The North Korea policy created by the Lee administration is almost entirely premised on some kind of upheaval in North Korea.”

“This, too, requires a thorough reexamination,” he said.

Chung also called for a reshuffling of the foreign affairs and national security team, saying that it was “time to reexamine our North Korea line and foreign affairs and national security line, which are made up exclusively of hardliners.”

The critical lawmakers were unanimous on “popular sentiment” being the reason a shift in North Korea policy was necessary.

“The people of South Korea support the government’s stern response to North Korea’s provocations, but they do not want to live under the continued threat of war,” said Nam during a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh. “They would like to see the government handling the North Korea risk wisely in the mid to long term.”

Also factoring into the calls in a determination that tensions on the peninsula cannot be mitigated when the administration is focused solely on maintaining the current situation, with the antagonistic relationship pitting South Korea, the United States, and Japan on one side against North Korea, China, and Russia on the other confirmed with the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.

Chung said, “With policy, you have to have progress along some course, but the Lee administration’s North Korea policy is all antagonism, with no progress.”

In a radio interview Wednesday, Hong Jung-wook, a member of the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee, said that the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island incidents “ultimately served as a painful confirmation that China and Russia are major diplomatic variables in the resolution of issues affecting the peninsula.”

Hong also said, “We have no choice but to recognize this reality, however frustrating it may be, and focus on mid to long-term efforts.”

However, other attendees at Wednesday’s GNP meeting contended that it is still too early for a shift in North Korea policy. Fourth-term lawmaker Lee Yoon-sung said that “no one will object to the idea of adjusting North Korea relations in the mid to long term,” but that South Korea “does not have that luxury right now, nor is it suitable.”

Another fourth-term lawmaker, Lee Kyeong-jae, said, “When politicians talks about ‘peace’ and ‘dialogue,’ these are very popular and pleasant words, but the question is whether we will really have detente and peace if we proceed into dialogue.”

Lee added that “high-level military confrontation is a realistic plan for keeping peace.”

Meanwhile, the main opposition Democratic Party is working overtime to extricate South Korea from its current national security morass. These efforts include mulling over the dispatching of special party emissaries to neighboring countries and a visit by the DP leadership to Kaesong Industrial Complex.

During a Supreme Council meeting Wednesday, DP Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu said that he was considering “finding an active path to dialogue by sending party delegations to the U.S., China, and Russia.” He added that he would “pursue direct dialogue between North Korea and South Korea if necessary.”

The decision marks Sohn’s acceptance of an proposal for unofficial meetings by Supreme Council members Chung Dong-young and Lee In-young, who say that it is necessary to send representatives to North Korea and neighboring countries in order to relieve tensions on the peninsula.

Chung, who will be serving as chairman of the party’s Special Committee for Inter-Korean Peace when it launches in the near future, submitted an application to the Unification Ministry on Wednesday for a visit to Kaesong Industrial Complex.

“If we are to prevent tensions and clashes on the Korean Peninsula and transition into conditions of peace and dialogue, we must use the Kaesong Industrial Complex as a bulwark of peace,” he said.

The DP’s recent activities result from an understanding that responding to the current national security situation with defensive criticisms will leave the party at the mercy of the government and ruling party’s military hardline.

“We have shifted the tenor of our response to the situation from ‘passive peace’ to ‘active peace,’” explained a key party official.

Previously, Song Young-gil, the DP-affiliated mayor of Incheon, presented a plan Tuesday for resolving the West Sea crisis by turning the Five West Sea Islands, including Baengnyeong Island, into a tourism complex.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]