Park Chul-un, a key aide to former President Roh Tae-woo (1988-1992), speaks during an interview with The Korea Times in Seoul, Friday. / Korea Times |
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.
Northern Policy
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.
노태우 정부시절 북한과 42차례에 걸친 비밀접촉을 통해 1991년 남북기본합의서를 만드는데 산파역할을 했던 박철언 전 장관이 남북관계와 관련 이명박 정부에 쓴 소리를 쏟아 냈다.
박 전장관은 국가안보는 철저하게, 북한은 융통성 있게 다뤄야 한다고 주장했다. 김정일 위원장 사후 급박하게 전개되는 한반도 정세하에서 남북관계를 다룰 때 한국정부가 준수해야 하는 중요한 원칙이라고 강조했다.
이명박 대통령 취임 이후 남북관계는 정반대로 운용되어 왔다고 그는 비판했다.
김정운 시대 북한은 중국에 더욱 예속될 것이라고 박 전장관은 예측했다. 김정은이 나이가 어리고 국정운영 경험이 부족한 점이 중국으로 하여금 후계자 김정은을 다루기 쉽게 할 것이라는 것이다.
중국이 북한을 지지하는 한, 그리고 한국과 중국이 북한문제를 다루는데 이견을 보이는 한 통일은 요원하다고 지적 하며 대중관계를 더욱 강화해야 한다고 주장했다.
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