Is It Time for South Korean Envoy to NK?

By Na Jeong-ju and Kim Se-jeong
Staff Reporters

Will President Lee Myung-bak send a special envoy to North Korea to make a breakthrough in the stalled inter-Korean relations and the multilateral nuclear talks?

The North's recent decision to accept the South's offer to provide the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to help the communist country fight the spread of Influenza A and to form a joint team with the South to survey industrial facilities in China and Vietnam raises hope of inter-Korean rapprochement.

Most officials here are still cautious over whether to dispatch an envoy to North Korea, but diplomatic sources have confirmed the idea is being discussed by some governing party lawmakers and senior policymakers.

It is still too early to say whether inter-Korean relations have bottomed out.

However, one of the key missions of the envoy, if realized, will be to discuss the possibility of a third summit between the leaders of the two Koreas, analysts say.

Discussions over a possible special envoy to North Korea are not new.

In April, the President told reporters that his administration was ready to dispatch a special envoy to North Korea.

"If the North is ready, we can send a special envoy," Lee told reporters in London, where he was participating in the G-20 summit.

Park Geun-hye of the Grand National Party; Chung Dong-young of the United New Democratic Party (UNDP); and Lee Jae-oh, who is now the chairman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, were mentioned as candidates.

The death of former President Kim Dae-jung in August also played a part in opening dialogues.

Kim Ki-nam, secretary of the North Korean Workers' Party Central Committee, led a delegation that took part in the late president's funeral.

In pursuit of the third head-of-state summit with the North Korean leader, the Lee administration reportedly made strenuous efforts to initiate lasting negotiations.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton made a surprise visit to Pyongyang to rescue two detained female reporters. Hyun Jung-eun, chairwoman of the Hyundai Group, also visited Pyongyang. Hyun met North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to hammer out a deal to resume commercial projects with Hyundai Asan, the details of which still need to be finalized.

Early this month, Japan's NHK reported that Labor Minister Yim Tae-hee met with Kim Yang-gun, the North's Workers Party director for unification, in Singapore in mid-November, hinting that the South was making clandestine efforts to schedule a summit. Yim denied the report, calling it groundless.

The South Korean government's last envoy to the North was Park Ji-won, who went there prior to Kim Dae-jung's visit in 2000.

He was then the chief of staff at Cheong Wa Dae, and is now a member of the main opposition Democratic Party.

jj@koreatimes.co.kr
skim@koreatimes.co.kr

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