By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
Former President Kim Dae-jung urged the government Thursday to have a firm stance toward propaganda leaflets sent by South Korean civic groups to North Korea.
In an interview with the Hankook Ilbo, a sister newspaper of The Korea Times, the Noble Peace Prize laureate expressed concern over the current icy relations between the two Koreas.
``Now, South-North relations stand at the crossroads ― heading toward catastrophe or reconciliation,'' he said.
Kim claimed that the government has to make it very clear how it will deal with several pending issues that affect inter-Korean ties.
The former president who designed the ``sunshine policy'' of engaging the reclusive North won the Nobel Peace Prize after holding the first-ever inter-Korean summit with his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-il in 2000.
In regard to the June 15 and Oct. 4 inter-Korean agreements, he pointed out that the Lee Myung-bak government has to implement them as they are the first of their kind signed by the leaders of South and North Korea.
The Lee administration inaugurated in late February has been ignoring the accords inked by Kim and his successor Roh Moo-hyun in 2000 and 2007, respectively, which has prompted North Korea to refuse inter-Korean dialogue.
Kim also stressed that the South must keep its civic groups from sending the leaflets to the Stalinist North.
``North Korea is shocked and confused more than we can imagine. The government has to stop them with legal means so as not to worsen the situation.''
Some civic groups, mainly organized by North Korean defectors, have set loose helium filled balloons with more than 100,000 leaflets containing criticism of the North's dictatorship and even rumors on the illness of the North Korean leader, despite repeated pleas and warnings from the two Koreas.
Kim cast a skeptical view on the Lee administration's North Korea policy dubbed ``Vision 3000,'' saying U.S. President George W. Bush eventually met failure with a similar hawkish stance.
The policy that envisions aid to boost North Korea's per capita national income to $3,000 within a decade in return for Pyongyang verifiably giving up its nuclear ambitions has invited criticism from the North.
South and North Korea are still technically at war after the Korean War (1950-53) ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty.