Defense Minister to Accompany Roh for Summit
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo is likely to accompany President Roh Moo-hyun, who will visit Pyongyang for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il early next month, ministry officials said Thursday.
Cheong Wa Dae asked Kim to travel to the North Korean capital given military issues including the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the West Sea would likely be high agenda at the summit, they said.
If the plan is fixed, Kim will be the first South Korean defense minister to visit the North in the 54 years since the armistice was signed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
However, military experts are worried that the unprecedented visit to the North by the defense minister would result in concessions on sensitive military issues to North Korea.
In the first inter-Korean summit in 2000, a major general at the ministry's arms control bureau accompanied then President Kim Dae-jung.
North Korean People's Armed Forces Minister Kim Il-chol visited the southern resort island of Jeju in September 2000 for the first-ever inter-Korean defense ministers' talks.
``The decision (on the defense minister's visit to the North) has not been made yet,'' Col. Kang Yong-hee at the ministry's public affairs office told The Korea Times. ``If it is made, however, Kim's travel to Pyongyang would be meaningful as it shows the South's firm determination to reduce cross-border military tension.''
Some ministry officials said that it is better for the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to visit the North with Roh, citing the 1992 Inter-Korean Joint Declaration under which the JCS vice chairman is designated as chief of a joint South and North military committee.
The NLL issue is a hot potato for the upcoming summit.
North Korea insists the sea borderline be nullified and redrawn, while South Korea maintains a firm position that the issue cannot be a matter of discussion, at least before tensions across the heavily fortified border are reduced, as it is a territorial issue.
The NLL was drawn up by the United Nations Command at the end of the Korean War and has served as the de facto sea border between the two Koreas.
The 1992 agreement stated inter-Korean ``inviolable borderlines and boundaries'' are recognized as in the armistice agreement signed at the end of the Korean War. The declaration, however, added the two Koreas can discuss the matter later.
Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said last month that he believes the NLL is not a territorial concept, provoking severe criticism from the country's conservative groups and the military. Later, Lee also said an inter-Korean naval clash in 2002 was caused by Seoul's refusal to negotiate the NLL.
Defense Minister Kim, however, rebuked Lee's argument, proposing the NLL issue be discussed in high-level military talks, not the summit.
The crab-rich western waters have been a flash point for inter-Korean conflicts. Gun battles in 1999 and 2002 caused scores of casualties on both sides.
The main opposition Grand National Party calls for leaving the NLL off the summit agenda. The conservative party said concessions on the NLL would be an ``unpatriotic act, tantamount to conceding the Dokdo islets in the East Sea to Japan.''