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Newly appointed Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik said in his first public comments since being named to the post Wednesday he would take a steady, yet adjustable approach toward North Korea.
"I plan to maintain the government's stance toward the North in a consistent manner," said Yu, at a news conference in Seoul. He was named to the post as part of a Cabinet reshuffle a day earlier. "Still, I will ponder if there could be room to exercise flexibility, if necessary for substantial development of inter-Korean ties.
Whether this signals a major change, however, remains to be seen.
The remarks indicate the administration is walking a fine line between working to improve cross-border ties while maintaining its “principled” approach, implemented for more than two years by outgoing Minister Hyun In-taek.
Yu’s appointment raised rampant speculation that he would usher in a phase of better cross-border ties by inviting more interchange. The former ambassador to Beijing has maintained a channel with the North since retiring from that post in May.
At the same time, President Lee Myung-bak signaled he would not make a drastic change in his Pyongyang policy by appointing Hyun as his special advisor for unification affairs.
Upon taking office in 2008, Lee ended a decade of massive aid to the North and tied its provision to denuclearization in a bid to change the North’s approach of alternating provocation with diplomacy.
“Naming Hyun as the special advisor means that President Lee doesn’t want North Korea and others to misunderstand what he is doing by replacing the minister of unification,” Park Young-ho, a senior fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said. “But (the reshuffle) does signal that the South is ready to resume real talks based on the principled approach.”
Yu, who is expected to take office in a matter of weeks after a parliamentary confirmation hearing, will do so amid a slight respite in the tensions gripping the peninsula since the North waged two deadly attacks on the South last year. A recent flurry of diplomacy, including rare bilateral contact, has raised hopes over the resumption of stalled multilateral denuclearization talks.
Park said the more open standpoint could entail slight movement toward resumption of six-party talks but not enough to rescind Cheong Wa Dae’s demand that Pyongyang take verifiable denuclearization steps before the process resumes.
Bahng Tae-seop, of the Samsung Economic Research Institute, said flexibility could entail greater efforts to pursue economic projects, and was bullish on prospects for a proposed trilateral pipeline project from Russia through the peninsula to deliver Siberian oil to the South.
“President Lee was a businessman, and so he probably wants to put a stamp on his presidency through the gas-pipeline project,” he said. “Progress on the project could eventually lead to a trilateral summit in Russia.”
North Korea recently expressed support for the project, prompting Rep. Hong Joon-pyo, chairman of the governing Grand National Party (GNP) to say the sides may soon strike a deal that could melt hostility in the region.
Other analysts, however, said the deal was still a long way off and that Seoul needs assurance that Pyongyang won’t use the costly pipeline as leverage against the South.
Yu’s moves will be watched carefully by watchers to discern the president’s direction as he is known to be a close confidant.
He designed several of Lee’s policies before stepping down as chief of staff in 2008 amid a public uproar over Seoul's decision to resume American beef imports.
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