hankyoreh

employees from Hyundai Asan inspect the location where Park Wang-ja

On July 13, the administration of Lee Myung-bak urged North Korea to accept a South Korean investigation into the shooting death of South Korean Park Wang-ja at Mount Geumgang.

“Accepting a fact-finding inquiry by our side and working on ways to prevent a recurrence would be what responsible authorities should do,” said a statement issued the same day in the name of the Unification Ministry spokesperson.

“This is a most serious matter that relates to the life and safety of a tourist who went to the North, and so it is the demand of our people and the position of our government that there must be a thorough inquiry into the truth,” the statement said.

The statement appears to have been made in response to one from the Northern agency responsible for overseeing tourism at Mount Geumgang the day before, which expressed “regret” about Park’s death but rejected demands for an on-site inquiry, saying, “responsibility for the incident lies with the South.”

According to the Unification Ministry statement, Park was shot by the North Korean military despite “clearly being a female tourist who was completely unarmed and had no intention of resisting.”

“Anyone can see that the action was wrong and was something that should not and must not happen,” the statement said.

“Failing to have a strict inquiry into what happened in this tragic incident will hurt the expectations of everyone who hopes for the development of inter-Korean relations through inter-Korean dialogue ... We call on the Northern side to take responsible action to assure something like this does not happen again,” the statement said.

Later the same day, senior Blue House secretaries met to discuss the incident. The government also called meetings of the “Working-level Task Force on Security Policy” and organized a “Joint Agency Governmental Task Force” to handle the matter.

On July 13, the Rodong Sinmun, the official organ of the North Korean Workers’ Party, declared President Lee Myung-bak’s call for a full resumption of inter-Korean dialogue “not even worth discussing,” saying his proposal is “nothing but an absurd trick to weaken the significance of the (June 15 and October 5) declarations and to avoid having to implement them.” Lee’s comments were made in a speech he gave at the National Assembly on July 11.

In response, a high-ranking Blue House official said it is “sad that North Korea is dismissing President Lee’s bold and broad decision” to call for dialogue. “His speech before the National Assembly was about presenting the larger framework for the direction of inter-Korean relations, and he will continue to maintain the position that there needs to be full inter-Korean dialogue.”

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