By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
The government has adopted inter-Korean unification under a ``liberal democracy'' as its North Korea policy, the Ministry of Unification said Saturday.
``It is advisable that South and North Korea are unified in accordance with visions based on liberal democracy,'' said ministry guidelines on inter-Korean issues published recently.
The policy is a major departure from the stance taken by the previous Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations. Under the Sunshine Policy of engaging North Korea, the two liberal administrations focused more on the peaceful coexistence of the two Koreas under their respective political and economic systems.
They paid little attention to the post-unification situation.
The publication also contained a negative view on the peace declaration signed by Roh and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Oct. 4, 2007 during the second inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang.
``Inter-Korean exchanges and aid to Pyongyang, promised under the circumstances that North Korea's nuclear issue remained unsolved and the North showed fewer-than-expected changes, were not good enough to muster public consensus and support,'' it said.
The summit agreement called for, among others, implementation of inter-Korean cooperation and assistance to the Stalinist state.
The new guidelines deleted remarks criticizing the unification of the Korean Peninsula under the Seoul-led liberal democracy.
It also took out ``reconciliatory cooperation'' and ``peaceful prosperity,'' which were contained in last year's version.
The publication also erased the sentence describing the June 15 Joint Declaration adopted by former President Kim and Kim Jong-il in 2000 as a historic event.
Defense Ministry officials defined the recent shooting of a South Korean tourist by a North Korean soldier at the Mt. Geumgang resort last month as an ``unacceptable act'' against humanitarianism and international law.
They made the strongly-worded definition during a nine-hour meeting on pending issues at the ministry last Friday.