Lee Min-hyung joined The Korea Times in 2014 and has worked as a journalist mainly in Korea’s finance, tech and automotive industry. He specializes in content creation, breaking news and in-depth analysis currently on transportation and mobility. You can reach him via mhlee@koreatimes.co.kr.
Kim wants to resume suspended economic projects with South
South Korean citizens watch a television report on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's New Year address, at Seoul Station in central Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap
By Lee Min-hyung
NK leader urges end to Seoul-Washington joint drills
By Lee Min-hyung
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un showed strong willingness to restart the suspended inter-Korean tourism and business projects this year in his New Year address, Tuesday.
But resuming these projects is impossible under the current sanctions regime led by the U.S. Observers here say he intends to get sanctions relief from the U.S. through projects with South Korea.
“I am willing to resume tourism to Mount Geumgang and reopen the Gaeseong Industrial Complex (both in North Korea) for nothing,” Kim said.
The remark came against the backdrop of the rapidly thawing inter-Korean relations. Starting last year, the young leader of the North offered to join hands with the South for complete denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Last year, Kim held three rounds of summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and reached a series of agreements centering on a bilateral pledge for peace and tension easing on the peninsula.
“The North and South should expand cooperation and exchanges for reconciliation and unity, which will allow all the people from the two Koreas to take advantage of the improvements in inter-Korean relations,” Kim said.
He added North Korea maintains its firm determination to root out decades-long hostility between Seoul and Pyongyang and turn the peninsula into a place of peace.
“As agreed upon earlier, the two Koreas should continue taking measures to ease military tension in border areas in air, sea and land and across the whole peninsula.
He did not step up any provocative rhetoric against the South, but urged Seoul to refrain from holding any joint military exercises with Washington this year.
“Any kinds of joint military exercises on the peninsula should not be allowed at a time when the two Koreas agreed to walk on the path of peace and prosperity,” he said. “At the same time, our view is that (the South) should put a complete end to bringing in any war equipment from the outside.”
The exercises refer to a series of annual military drills between Seoul and Washington, including large-scale Foal Eagle combined tactical training exercise and Ulchi Freedom Guardian command post exercise.
Whenever Seoul and Washington carried out the joint drills, Pyongyang stepped up bellicose rhetoric and warned the allies to stop the exercises by calling them an act of military provocation.
Moon and Kim agreed to discuss the issue as a top priority by establishing an inter-Korean military committee in a near future, during a three-day-long Pyongyang summit in September.
In the first clause of the inter-Korean military agreement signed on the sidelines of the summit, the two Koreas agreed on fine-tuning their differences on the issue and military tension easing through the committee.