By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The Lee Myung-bak government is considering offering economic incentives to North Korea in return for agreeing to deal with the issue of South Koreans abducted by the North and prisoners of war (POWs) still alive there, one of his key advisers said Wednesday.
``Previous governments have failed to yield results regarding the issue of South Korean abductees and POWs,'' Yoo Jong-ha, a former foreign affairs minister from 1996 to 1998, said during a forum in Seoul. ``Lee wants to solve this problem through other ways, offering aid for the of release of the South Koreans.''
The liberal Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations have been reluctant to handle alleged human rights abuses in North Korea including the POWs and abduction issue for fear of damaging their ``sunshine'' policy of engaging the communist regime.
According to government records, about 19,000 South Korean soldiers went missing in action during the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a permanent peace treaty. North Korean agents kidnapped about 485 South Koreans since the end of the war, it said.
The government estimates some 560 POWs are still alive in the North. Pyongyang, however, denies holding any South Korean against his or her will.
Sources said the incoming government would take as a model West Germany's inducement policy for the release of political dissidents in East Germany.
Under the plan, Seoul could offer economic cooperation programs to Pyongyang in return for confirmation of life or death of South Koreans in the North, contact with their families in the South, and eventual repatriation, they said.
Regarding the North Korean nuclear issue, Yoo argued Washington would withdraw its troops in South Korea if North Korea succeeds in building nuclear weapons.
``If a rogue regime has weapons of mass destruction, the United States is likely to pull its troops from the Korean Peninsula because it will not want its 30,000-strong forces in harm's way in the face of the threat posed by the North,'' he said.
About 28,000 U.S. soldiers are serving here as a deterrent against North Korea, which conducted a nuclear test in October 2006.