Senior official tapped as vice unification minister

By Chung Min-uck

President Lee Myung-bak nominated a veteran official as vice minister of unification, the presidential office announced, Monday.

Kim Chun-sig, 55, current head of the ministry’s unification policy office, is to replace Um Jong-sik.

“Kim has strong experience and expertise in unification policies and is known to carry out his duties with great efficiency,” said Kim Hyeong-jun, press affairs secretary at the presidential office, in a briefing.

The shuffle is in line with the recent replacement of the unification minister.

The former Ambassador to China Yu Woo-ik, one of Lee’s closest confidantes, took office in September hinting on Lee administration’s change in North Korean policy to adjustable approach, amid widespread criticism that the former minister Hyun In-taek’s principled approach had failed to improve inter-Korean ties.

The tension has been rising since 2008 when Lee cut heavy aid to the North linking its provision to denuclearization steps. The situation worsened after the North sank the warship Cheonan and shelled the border island of Yeonpyeong last year.

Yet the situation has been improving in recent months.

Rep. Hong Joon-pyo, chairman of the ruling Grand National Party, last month visited the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in the northern border city of the North calling for a flexible reciprocal approach toward the reclusive neighbor.

Last month North Korean leader Kim Jong-il also said that the six-party talks should be resumed quickly without preconditions, according to the North Korean Central News Agency.

The vice minister nominee is a graduate of Seoul National University and passed the higher civil service examination in 1984. Since then Kim served in key ministry posts such as chief of the office handling inter-Korean exchanges and economic cooperation.

An official of Cheong Wa Dae said that the nomination for the new chief bodyguard and the minister of knowledge economy is to be conducted after the by-elections slated for Wednesday.