By Kang Hyun-kyung
An architect of the ``Northern Policy’’ under former President Roh Tae-woo (1988-1992) urged President Lee Myung-bak Friday to use strategic flexibility to respond to nuclear-armed North Korea.
Under the foreign policy initiative, Park Chul-un, 69, played a pivotal role in broadening Seoul’s diplomatic horizon to the northern hemisphere by establishing diplomatic relations with communist countries, including China and Russia.
Park urged President Lee to stand firm on national security by using zero-tolerance for any acts that can jeopardize sovereignty, but also to be very careful not to corner North Korea.
“Unfortunately, what Lee has done when handling the North since he was sworn in as President in February, 2008 was quite the opposite,” the former Cabinet minister lamented in an interview with The Korea Times.
“The Lee government has been headed in the wrong direction as it has joined the drive to contain North Korea.”
Park predicted North Korea will remain a headache for the Lee government in the post-Kim Jong-il era.
“Successor Kim Jong-un is young and inexperienced. I believe this will make it easier for China, North Korea’s decades-long benefactor, to handle the North. The North will be more dependent on China in the Kim Jong-un era,” he predicted.
“China will continue to support its ally as it will want to keep its economic interests, such as the right to use mineral resources and North Korea’s port, safe. This has crucial implications for South Korea.”
Park, a prosecutor-turned-politician, noted South Korea will be unable to achieve unification with North Korea if such a strong China is not on the same page with South Korea.
Therefore, he underlined, Seoul officials need to seek ways to strengthen ties with China as the two countries mark the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations in 2012.
From 1987 to 1991, Park, a relative of former President Roh, had 42 secret contacts with North Korean officials, including then leader Kim Il-sung.
The series of secret high-level talks led to a historical agreement on inter-Korean relations in 1991.
Seoul and Pyongyang reached the Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression, Exchange and Cooperation between South and North Korea, which foreign policy experts here called a “remarkable, historical breakthrough in the then 43-year history of inter-Korean relations.”
Under the agreement, the two sides upheld the principle of non-interference in their respective internal politics and renounced the use of military force against each other.
Political scientist Kim Choong-nam said, “The agreement was by far the most important document adopted by the two Koreas since the South-North Joint Statement of July 4, 1972.”
The two Koreas signed the agreement four years after North Korean agents blew up Korean Air flight 858 heading for Seoul from Baghdad in November 1989. A total of 115 passengers, including 93 Korean passengers and 20 crew members, were aboard the plane.
Park recalled the historical agreement was the outcome of Roh government’s use of strategic flexibility for the sake of the long-term goal of unification.
He urged President Lee to follow suit.
Park is credited with pushing for diplomatic relations with communist countries, including China and Russia, in the early 1990s when the first wave of a regime change swept through Eastern Europe.
The ultimate goal of the Northern Policy was to reunify the two Koreas by establishing and bolstering partnerships with the former Soviet Union and China, North Korea’s key allies.
In a speech in April 1989, Roh elaborated the rationale of his foreign policy initiative.
“In order to change North Korea, we must create an international environment in which North Korea can open up. Since we cannot let North Korea open its doors directly, we decided to go to Pyongyang through Moscow and Beijing,” the former President said.
Meanwhile, Park said Lee’s remarks made days after North Korea conducted a fireworks display worth $5 million on the eve of the 98th birthday of the late Kim Il-sung last April were very inappropriate.
Speaking to a meeting with presidential advisors on North Korea, Lee criticized North Korean leader Kim Jong-il for the fireworks event.
President Lee said he believed the North must have been senseless as it spent such a huge amount of money, with which the North could buy more than 10,000 tons of corn to feed its starving people, for the one-hour spectacle.
Under any circumstance, Park warned, a South Korean leader should not make any intrusive comments on his North Korean counterpart as he will need to face the consequences in South-North relations.
Park said Lee “crossed the line” and this would have made the North harbor discontent about the South Korean leader.