hankyoreh

By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter

Experts attending a debate called for Seoul to take the initiative in improving relations with Pyongyang and stressed the importance of establishing trust domestically.

They also said the new administration under Park Geun-hye stands a better chance of improving relations than the outgoing Lee Myung-bak government did.

Inje University professor Kim Yeon-chul stressed the role of the South Korean government in a presentation on foreign affairs and national security in the third session of the Park Geun-hye Administration Governance Task Emergency Assessment Debate, a Feb. 27 event organized by the Hankyoreh Institute for Social Policy.

“When we say that we’re going to look and see what North Korea does before deciding on our approach, we’re basically letting North Korea decide the state of inter-Korean relations,” Kim explained.

“If we look at examples where relations actually did improve, such as the four inter-Korean basic agreements, most of them were spearheaded by Seoul,” he added.

Kim also said the government should not simply follow Washington and Beijing in approaching inter-Korean relations.

“The South Korean government has a much larger say in the state of the Korean Peninsula than it did in the past,” he said. “Now Washington and Beijing are looking to see what Seoul does.”

As priorities in improving relations with Pyongyang, Kim said the Park administration needs to offer solutions on the issues of divided families, the Mt. Kumgang tourism venture, and the “May 24 measures” that effectively shut off all dialogue with North Korea in the wake of the 2010 sinking of the ROKS Cheonan warship. In particular, he said no joint projects with North Korea, recovery of trust, or solution to the nuclear issue would be likely without resolutions to these issues.

He also made reference to Park’s idea of a “trust building process,” saying it was essential to establish “trust at home” through a national consensus and bipartisan cooperation in the National Assembly.

“Nothing is going to get solved if we tie economic cooperation to nuclear weapons,” Kim concluded. “The only way to improve relations with Pyongyang is by approaching both of them at the same time.”

Another debate participant, Dongguk University professor Park Soon-sung, pointed to three problem areas in the new administration’s foreign policy and security approach. The first one he mentioned was that in spite of efforts to engage both Washington and Beijing through trilateral strategic dialogue, the administration still focusing too heavily on the alliance with the US.

The second was the large number of people with military and US-related backgrounds filling foreign policy and security positions for the administration. Park also said that the administration’s governance tasks were focused too much on military and security matters while neglecting diplomacy and reunification efforts.

The third was the administration’s underestimation of its own capabilities with regard to inter-Korean relations and failure to integrate domestic capabilities. In this regard, Park stressed the need for a “governance” approach to harness the capabilities of civil society.

Some of the debate participants criticized the state of confusion with the offices coordinating foreign affairs and security policy.

“The National Security Office in the president’s office was because of confusion in foreign affairs and security created by the Lee Myung-bak administration,” said Kim. “But you also still have the office of the senior secretary for foreign affairs and national security, which leaves the possibility of the two offices conflicting.”

Park Geun-hye has said that the senior secretary’s office would be handling shorter-term tasks and the national security office medium and long-term tasks, but the distinction is sometimes a difficult one to make.

Another debate participant, Hankyoreh senior staff writer Kang Tae-ho, mentioned three potential positive changes in the Park administration‘s approach to inter-Korean relations compared to the Lee administration, when they hit rock bottom.

First, he mentioned its plans to follow the terms of the existing agreements with Pyongyang, namely the July 4 Joint Statement of 1972, the 1992 Basic Inter-Korean Agreement, the June 15 Joint Declaration of 2000, and the October 4 Joint Declaration of 2007. Second, he noted that it was not planning to tie inter-Korean relations to the nuclear issue. Third, he pointed to its plans to pursue trilateral strategic dialogue with Washington and Beijing.

“If you consider that the ‘Northern Policy’ and Basic Agreement emerged from the Roh Tae-woo administration, which was conservative like the Park administration, then we may be able to expect some things from the Park administration as well,” Kang said.

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