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President Lee Myung-bak’s decision to retain the ministers of foreign affairs, defense and unification in Sunday’s Cabinet reshuffle, in which seven out of 16 ministers were replaced, signals that the conservative leader will keep a tough stance on North Korea for the remainder of his term, some analysts said Monday.
However, others say the nomination of Rep. Lee Jae-oh of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP), one of the closest aides to President Lee, as the minister for special affairs, whose main missions include dealing with North Korea, could mean that there will be more active inter-Korean contacts.
Lee’s recent appointment of former GNP lawmaker Yim Tae-hee, who reportedly acted as his envoy to discuss a possible inter-Korean summit last year with North Korean officials in Singapore, as his chief of staff, also makes the theory more plausible.
“Certainly, policymakers here share mixed feelings about North Korea. Some support Lee’s hard-line policy, while others say Lee needs to make a breakthrough in the stalled inter-Korean relations to find solutions to pending security issues,” a source from the ruling camp said on condition of anonymity.
“What is clear is that the relations with Pyongyang will remain one of the biggest challenges for the Lee administration and it will have to make a strategic decision at some point to turn the situation around.”
In fact, Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yu Myung-hwan, Defense Minister Kim Tae-young and Unification Minister Hyun In-taek were among those who had been widely speculated to be replaced.
Yu came under fire for his controversial remarks on young South Koreans sympathetic to North Korea.
Speaking to reporters on the ruling party’s unexpected defeat in the June 2 local elections in Hanoi, Vietnam, on the sidelines of a regional security forum, the minister complained that young voters chose opposition party candidates in the belief that they could prevent war on the Korean Peninsula.
He reportedly said that if young people liked North Korea, they should leave and settle there.
Defense Minister Kim already tendered his resignation to take responsibility for the military’s late response to the March 26 sinking of the Navy frigate Cheonan, in which 46 sailors died.
Following weeks of investigation, the Board of Audit and Inspection recommended the defense ministry to discipline 25 military officsers and officials regarding the incident.
Unification Minister Hyun had also been pressured by opposition parties to resign over the deadlocked inter-Korean relations.
Observers say President Lee’s decision to keep the ministers could be bad news for North Korea, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he trusts them totally. Some claimed that it was rather an inevitable choice amid escalating tension between the two countries.
“As Seoul’s diplomatic efforts to have Pyongyang pay the price for the deadly ship sinking are still underway and the North continues to threaten provocative acts, it would difficult for Lee to reshuffle his security team,” said a diplomatic source.
“However, he should consider an exit strategy to the Cheonan tragedy when the time comes. Then he will need different people with different principles.”
At that time, the minister-nominee Lee and presidential chief of staff Yim could play key roles in reactivating inter-Korean dialogue and possibly reshaping President Lee’s North Korea policy, the source said.
He also didn’t rule out the possibility of a summit between Lee and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il before the President’s tenure ends in early 2013.
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