By Kim Yon-se
Staff Reporter
President Roh Moo-hyun Monday stressed the need for establishing a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula in a speech to mark the 59th Armed Forces Day at the Army headquarters in South Chungcheong Province, Monday. Roh said the nation's best security strategies are the elimination of confrontational order on the Korean Peninsula and the establishment of peace.
He added that the confrontational period lingering in Northeast Asia must give way to reconciliation and cooperation. The President said the government has thus pursued self-defense and balanced diplomacy under the vision of Northeast Asian peace and common prosperity.
Roh reaffirmed that the establishment of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula will be the top item on the agenda to be discussed during his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il from today until Thursday.
In keeping with progress on Korean Peninsula peace talks, the two Koreas will start discussing ways of enhance mutual military confidence, the signing of a Korean Peninsula peace treaty and inter-Korean disarmament, Roh said.
``Without confidence in peace, co-prosperity and unification on the Korean Peninsula would be meaningless. Furthermore, regional circumstances surrounding the peninsula, including the six-party talks on the settlement of the North Korean nuclear issue, have entered a hopeful phase," said the president.
Roh added, ``The primary goal for the South Korean armed forces is preventing a war. Peace can be safeguarded only by power.''
He noted the agreement between South Korea and the United States this year on the U.S. transfer of its wartime operational control of South Korean troops to Seoul in 2012.
Seoul and Washington already decided to disband their consolidated Combined Forces Command as Seoul sought to regain wartime control.
Conservatives and veterans contend that the command transfer will weaken the country's deterrence against a possible North Korean provocation and its half-century alliance with the U.S.
But the government and liberal groups downplayed their anxiety.
``The regaining of wartime command is to remove restraints imposed on our sovereignty,'' Roh said.