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North Koreaqn Workers’ Party of Korea secretary

By Seong Han-yong, political correspondent

The chairman of North Korea’s Asia-Pacific Peace Committee made a call for the lifting of the May 24 Measures, South Korea’s 2010 sanctions against the North, a former Minister of Unification said in a lecture on Aug. 28.

“We’re proposing dialogue, exchange, and cooperation. President Park Geun-hye needs to make the decision to lift the May 24 measures,” Kim Yang-gon was quoted as saying during the lecture by former Minister of Unification Lim Dong-won at the Shinhan University Institute for Peaceful Unification of the Korean People, a research center headed by director Lee Jong-chan. In addition to chairing the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, Kim is also the Workers’ Party of Korea secretary for South Korean affairs and director of Pyongyang’s Unified Front Department.

Kim spoke to Lim for an hour after delivering a commemorative wreath and message to a group of South Koreans visiting on Aug. 17 to mark the fifth anniversary of the death of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. Among the visitors was former lawmaker Kim Hong-up, the former president’s son.

“Now is a time when the important thing is practice, not rhetoric,” Kim was reported as saying. “We need a practical determination from the supreme leader.”

Kim went on to complain that the sanctions were getting in the way of implementing past inter-Korean agreements.

“We need to honor the June 15 Joint Declaration agreed up by the North and South Korean leaders [in 2000], but all contacts and all interchange and cooperation have been cut off,” he was quoted as saying. “Environmental cooperation and a peace park in the Demilitarized Zone [two possible projects proposed by Park] are nice ideas, but we think a resumption of the interrupted contact, exchange, and cooperation needs to come first.”

Kim also reportedly voiced concerns when asked by Lim why Pyongyang refused to agree to senior-level inter-Korean meetings.

“The South keeps attaching conditions that the North cannot accept, like progress on the nuclear issue, and they proposed senior-level contacts just before joint military exercises with the US,” he reportedly replied.

“We’re proposing dialogue, exchange, and cooperation,” he continued, according to Lim. “We made this clear in our New Year’s address, and we’ve stated our position in our National Defense Commission’s statement.”

Kim also said the issue of contact and dialogue had been reported to the party’s central executive, which Lim interpreted as meaning “they are now waiting to bring [the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue] up with the supreme leader.”

Lim added that details of his conversation with Kim had been summarized in meeting reports and delivered to the Ministry of Unification.

Kim visited Seoul after Kim Dae-jung’s death in Aug. 2009 with secretary Kim Ki-nam, head of the North Korean official mourners’ delegation. He succeeded secretary Kim Yong-sun, who died in 2003, as overseeing South Korea policy in North Korea.

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