South Korea’s Park pledges engagement with Pyongyang

South Korea’s presidential frontrunner Park Geun-hye proposed on Monday to open liaison offices in the capitals of the rival Koreas in a sweeping policy statement that aimed to revive ties between the two countries.

Park, who is seeking to become the country’s first woman president, said she was willing to meet North Korea’s leader but said Pyongyang must renew its commitment to end its nuclear programme. Park, who is the daughter of assassinated leader Park Chung-hee, leads her two major liberal opponents by double digits in a race for a December 19 vote to pick South Korea’s president for a single five-year term.

Park’s call for a more accommodative policy toward the North is aimed at distancing herself from President Lee Myung-bak’s hardline position. Offering a different policy approach to Lee, Park also said she would separate the humanitarian crisis in North Korea from politics. Lee, who cut off aid to the North when he took power in 2008, has linked a resumption of food aid to a political thaw.

“For continued and systematic development of South-North economic cooperation and social and cultural exchange, I will establish South-North exchange and cooperation offices in Seoul and Pyongyang,” Park told a news conference. Park called for a confidence building process as a way to normalize ties between the two Koreas, adding it should begin with the two sides reaffirming existing agreements.

Tags: north korea, Park Geun-hye, South Korea

This entry was posted in DPRK Government, Humanitarian Aid and Relief by Grant Montgomery.