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S.Korea to make no change in two-track DPRK policy

Xinhua, April 28, 2015 Adjust font size:

The South Korean government will make no change in its two-track policy toward the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) despite recent stand-offs in dialogue and inter-Korean relations.

A senior Unification Ministry official said on condition of anonymity Tuesday that South Korea will continue efforts in dialogue and exchange with the DPRK while sternly dealing with any DPRK provocations, a basic framework of the trust-building process on the Korean Peninsula advocated by the Park Geun-hye administration.

The government's fresh DPRK policy stemmed from a combination of advantages of DPRK policies from previous governments, the official said, apparently pointed out the "Sunshine Policy" under left-leaning governments and the hard-line policy under conservative administrations.

The 2008-2012 Lee Myung-bak government was under criticism for the so-called "strategic patience" toward the DPRK, which actually means doing nothing to improve inter-Korean relations.

Under the Park Geun-hye administration, the two Koreas held more than 20 rounds of talks, but no progress has been made in inter-Korean ties since October 2014, the last time when the official inter-Korean contact was made.

The official said that the DPRK was responsible for the suspended inter-Korean talks as Pyongyang has demanded the lifting of the May 24 sanctions, imposed by Seoul after a South Korean Navy battleship sank off the disputed western sea border, and the halt of joint annual war games between Washington and Seoul that ended last week.

Despite the unresolved issue on the DPRK's nuclear program, South Korea will continue humanitarian aid to the DPRK, the official said. Seoul approved a private company's fertilizer aid to the DPRK Monday for the first time in about five years.

The official said the DPRK's nuclear issue should be first resolved in order to build political trust between the two Koreas and, in the long term, transform the current armistice agreement, a legacy from the 1950-53 Korean War, into a peace treaty in the end.

He urged the DPRK to return to the dialogue table to discuss issues of mutual concern, in which Pyongyang has much interest, as well as the reunion of Korean families separated by the fratricidal war, a humanitarian issue that South Korea has described very urgent. Endi