Seoul to unveil guidelines on Park's security policies in March

The government plans to announce a set of guidelines on the Park Geun-hye administration's national security policies next month to better publicize her handling of national security issues, an official said Tuesday. Park's national security strategies were established last year when she took office, and the upcoming guidelines are aimed at informing the public and the international community of her policy line, the official said. "The written guidelines reflect the current developments in the national security environment and the new government's policy line, and they are expected to be released around March," he said. The guidelines are likely to focus on Park's strategies to address issues pertaining to North Korea as well as the Northeast Asian region, according to the official. Park has been promoting her signature "trust building" policy toward the communist North, vowing to use both pressure and dialogue to induce the country to give up its nuclear arms program. Seoul has also announced its plan to seek cooperation with the United Nations and the European Union on other global entities as part of its efforts to resolve security issues posed by the nuclear-armed North. The source said those policy strategies may go into the guidelines. He said the guidelines may also delve into Park's global push for the unification of South and North Koreas and lay out in details each policy step of Park's so-called Korea Peninsula Trust Process, aimed at denuclearizing North Korea. On the military defense front, the planned guidelines will go over South Korea's defense systems against North Korea, most notably the so-called Kill Chain preemptive missile attack system and the local missile defense system, called KAMD. Measures to secure peace in Northeast Asia are likely to be outlined there amid simmering regional diplomatic tensions surrounding Japan's recent nationalist moves. Such guidelines are not new for South Korean presidents. Two former presidents, Roh Moo-hyun and Lee Myung-bak, also released similar national policy guidelines about one year into office.