Scholars, former government officials urge Seoul to improve relations with North Korean

Scholars and former policymakers urged Seoul Friday to actively seek improved relations with Pyongyang at a gathering to mark the sixth anniversary of a landmark declaration reached in the 2007 inter-Korean summit. At the forum organized by the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation, the Korea Peace Forum and the Institute for Future Korea, speakers were unanimous in calling on the incumbent Park Geun-hye administration to push forward an engagement policy toward the communist country. Lee Jong-seok, who was unification minister under a liberal administration in 2006, said hardline policies implemented under former conservative President Lee Myung-bak are still effectively swaying policies under Park, who took office this February. He claimed that with front-line officials focused only on denuclearization, there is a need for another summit so the leaders can talk in a frank manner. "Such a meeting can permit Park to speak with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, exchange views on the North's nuclear programs and the future of the Korean people," he said. This view was echoed by Lee Jae-joung, another former head of the ministry in charge of cross-border relations, who claimed the North has never in the past called for dialogue with the South and other countries as it has done in the past few months. "This is an opportunity to resolve issues that have not been properly tackled in the past 60 years," he argued. Others such as Chang Yong-seok, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University, said it is important for Seoul and Pyongyang to respect each. The scholar said the South should take steps to fulfill past agreements such as the Oct. 4 Declaration, which called for expanded cooperation across the board and creating conditions for peaceful coexistence and eventual reunification of the two Koreas. Kim Yeon-chul, a professor of North Korean studies at Inje University, said the North seems to be trying to develop its economy by designating various special business zones. He said such moves can provide new opportunities for prosperous and peaceful coexistence on the Korean Peninsula. Meanwhile, officials from the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation called on Seoul to reconsider its policy guideline that will govern South-North relations under President Park. The foundation, an organization that represents the late liberal president's family, said in a press conference held on the sidelines of the joint forum that moves to not specifically mention the maritime peace zone in the Yellow Sea constitutes a breaking of the president's pledge to respect all agreements signed in the past. The peace zone was actively pursued by the late chief executives to prevent clashes between the two Koreas. It was part of the agreement reached at the last summit. It also said the exclusion of a firm goal of trying to sign a permanent peace treaty to replace the present cease-fire armistice that halted the 1950-53 Korean War is a wrong move that must be altered before the proposal becomes this administration's North Korean policy guideline. Since no formal peace treaty ending hostilities were signed, South and North Korea are still technically at war.