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Aug. 7. (Blue House photo pool)

By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent and Choi Hyun-june, staff reporter

The first session of the Presidential Committee for Unification Preparation was held at the State Guest House at the Blue House on Aug. 7, with President Park Geun-hye presiding and around 80 governmental and nongovernmental members in attendance. In contrast to expectations, the topics of lifting the May 24 Measures against North Korea and holding reunions for divided families at Chuseok, the Korean Harvest Festival, were barely even addressed by the committee. This is sparking concerns that the committee will do little more than discuss lofty, unrealistic ideas while not making actual progress toward improving inter-Korean relations.

During the two-hour meeting, Park asked the members of the committee to discuss various concrete plans for implementing the provisions and the spirit of the Dresden Declaration, which she announced in February while in Germany. She also emphasized the need to devise ways for South and North Korea to cooperate on building public infrastructure, including large-scale public works projects such as connecting the transcontinental railroad and the inter-Korean railroad, along with improving the residential environment and expanding small roads.

When the president was asked whether the objective of the government’s cooperation plans for North Korea was to isolate the North or to open it up for reforms, she responded that the government will work to expand cooperation on issues that South and North Korea can begin immediately, issues that do not violate North Korean sanctions imposed by the international community.

“North Korea is opposing our proposals, but if the North continues to make a sincere effort, it will see positive change, too,” Park said.

The comments that Park made on Thursday are much the same as the government policies and plans for North Korea that she has disclosed until now. When one of the participants suggested that misunderstandings about the Dresden Declaration need to be resolved, Park responded that they could be dealt with in the process of implementing the plans announced at Dresden. “We will work to build trust between North and South Korea, starting small with groups in the private sector,” Park said, in line with her oft-repeated principles

It was a member of the opposition party who brought up sensitive issues affecting North and South Korea. Woo Yun-geun, policy committee chair for the New Politics Alliance for Democracy who is a civilian member of the committee, proposed normalizing economic cooperation between North and South Korea by lifting the May 24 measures, instituting regular reunions for the divided families at Chuseok, resuming tourism to Mt. Keumgang, and holding talks between high-ranking officials from North and South.

But as soon as Woo finished speaking, Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae effectively shut down the discussion of those issues. “This committee should be talking about preparing for reunification, not the May 24 measures. We need to draw up a blueprint and talk about the big picture,” Ryoo said.

This prompted another civilian member to protest. “Are we only supposed to talk about the topics that the government has chosen? Isn’t this a place to share our ideas about what we need to talk about, including the May 24 measures?” the civilian member said. This exchange illustrates the fact that if the government-led committee dodges discussion of current issues and only carries out pro forma discussions of unification, non-governmental members with policy ideas that are different from the government’s will be little more than decorations on the committee.

Immediately after the meeting, Jeong Jong-wook, vice chairman for the civilian members, announced the basic directions for operating the Unification Preparatory Committee. According to Jeong, topics for discussion at the committee include reviewing the enactment of a unification constitution, uncovering new kinds of economic growth that can bring about unification, finding things that Koreans can do to prepare for unification in their everyday lives, discovering unification policies that can be achieved through cooperation between the public and private sectors, and making plans to give special consideration to vulnerable sectors of society including North Korean refugees.

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