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By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
President Roh Moo-hyun should raise the issue of full dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear programs when he sits down with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il early next month to further develop inter-Korean relations, former Unification Minister Park Jae-kyu said.
Park, 63, an architect of the first-ever cross-border summit in 2000, expressed hope that the disablement of the North's nuclear program will be completed by the end of the year, but stressed the ultimate goal for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula should be full denuclearization.
Park serves as a presidential advisor on North Korean affairs and a member of an advisory committee for the second inter-Korean summit from Oct. 2-4 in Pyongyang. He also works as president of Kyungnam University.
``I believe the North's disablement steps would produce substantial progress because both the United States and North Korea now have strong will to live up to pledges under the Feb. 13 disarmament pact,''Park said in a recent interview with The Korea Times at his office in Seoul.
He referred to progress in recent diplomatic normalization talks between Washington and Pyongyang in Geneva. In the two days of talks, the North pledged that it would disarm its nuclear programs by the end of the year in accordance with a February disarmament-for-aid agreement with the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.
``Disablement itself is not the solution to the nuclear problem, however. That is different from full denuclearization of the peninsula,''said Park. ``Without denuclearization, the development of inter-Korean relations will inevitably be limited. South Korea should play a role in achieving the goal of denuclearization.''
President Roh, however, said last week he will not emphasize the nuclear issue in the upcoming summit but will focus on establishing a permanent peace regime on the peninsula to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War. The war ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically at war.
The Feb. 13 disarmament deal, however, fell short of mentioning any existing nuclear weapons or plutonium stockpiles held by the North, which conducted its first-ever nuclear bomb test in October last year.
North Korea already shut down its plutonium-producing reactor in Yongbyon in July as part of initial steps for denuclearization.
In a step showing its seriousness about the disablement, North Korea last week allowed a team of nuclear specialists from the United States, China and Russia to inspect the Yongbyon nuclear complex, 100 kilometers north of Pyongyang.
Park said the summit should deal with issues of peaceful reunification, transforming the Cold War structure into a peace structure, economic assistance and cooperation (with the aim of forging an inter-Korean economic community), and separated families including South Korean prisoners of war and the North’s abduction of South Korean nationals.
gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr
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