ROK and Inter-Korean relations
January 2013
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Lee Pardons Corrupt Cronies
President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday defied opposition from all sides of the political spectrum by pardoning close aides who had been convicted of taking bribes. The Cabinet approved the last special amnesty of his term for 55 people including politicians and business executives.
Among the beneficiaries are former National Assembly speaker Park Hee-tae and Choi See-joong, the ex-chairman of the Korea Communications Commission. Both are close confidants of the president. Choi is currently serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for receiving W600 million (US$1=W1,085) in bribes to authorize business deals involving a major construction project. He will be sprung on Thursday.
[Corruption] [Lee Myung-bak]
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Situation on the Korean peninsula becoming “more serious”
Posted on : Jan.28,2013 14:53 KST
Modified on : Jan.28,2013 14:55 KST
Professor Park Han-shik implores new South Korean government to make contact to avoid conflict between the Koreas
By Park Hyun, Washington correspondent
The situation on the Korean peninsula is “apparently becoming considerably more serious,” said Park Han-shik on Jan. 26 (local time). Park is a political science professor at the University of Georgia and an expert on the US-North Korea relationship.
In an interview with the Hankyoreh, Park said that considering how young Kim Jong-un is, what he views a sovereign state to be, and what statements have been made over the past few days, “one wonders whether [the North] will just talk without actually doing anything.” Park also emphasized the fact that policy makers in South Korea and the US must recognize the severity of the situation
[SK NK policy]
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Pundits Call for New Strategy Against N.Korean Nuclear Threat
Defense experts say Seoul needs to overhaul its entire national security policy on the assumption that North Korea is or will soon be armed with nuclear missiles.
The South Korean military's current operational plans are based on the assumption that the North has only basic nuclear bombs that have to be carried by bomber planes.
But now pundits say North Korea is at least close to miniaturizing nuclear warheads so they could be fitted on missile.
[Weaponisation]
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Lee Defies Successor Over His Final Special Pardon
President Lee Myung-bak will issue a special pardon as early as Tuesday freeing around 50 people convicted of various offenses, Cheong Wa Dae said.
Convicts on the list include Choi See-joong, a close confidant of Lee's and former head of the Korea Communications Commission, who was convicted of corruption.
A Cheong Wa Dae official said it has not been decided whether Choi's sentence will be commuted or shortened.
But Lee's brother Sang-deuk, who was also convicted of taking bribes, is apparently not on the list since he has not been sentenced yet.
A spokesman for Lee's successor, Park Geun-hye, on Saturday said the president-elect is against this last-ditch amnesty. But a high-ranking Cheong Wa Dae official said the pardon is entirely within the authority of the incumbent president
[Corruption] [Lee Myung-bak]
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More Young Men Dodge Military Service by Going Abroad
More young men are avoiding their mandatory military service by failing to return from traveling or studying abroad. The numbers grew from 62 in 2007 to 149 in 2012.
According to the Military Manpower Administration, altogether 915 men have now postponed their military service for overseas trips and not reported back.
Overseas travel is becoming easier and a number of controls that ensured that young men would return have been abolished.
In 2007, the government scrapped a rule that required all men under 24 who have not fulfilled their military duty to apply for a travel permit, though it is still required for men over 25 who still have not served.
[ROK military]
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More 'Contrite' Defectors Paraded on N.Korean State TV
Four North Korean defectors who had settled in the South have returned to North Korea, the renegade country's state TV claimed Thursday.
"A press conference was held in the People's Palace of Culture in Pyongyang on Thursday by Kim Kwang-ho and his wife, and Ko Kyong-hui, who were lured to South Korea by the deceptive scheme of the puppet regime and came back" to North Korea, the report claimed in the usual agitated rhetoric of the state media.
[Refugee reception]
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North Korea has harsh words for the South
Posted on : Jan.26,2013 12:44 KST
A new long-distance ballistic missile was unveiled at Sunday’s military parade in Pyongyang.
In response to expanded sanctions, North Korea says it will have no contact with South Koreans
By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer
After targeting the US with statements from the foreign ministry (Jan. 23) and the National Defense Commission (Jan. 24) that threatened to conduct a nuclear test, North Korea has set its sights on the South Korean government. A statement by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (CPRF) released on Jan. 25 mentioned “strong physical counter-measures.”
“The puppet group of traitors were in a desperate hurry to put into effect the UN sanctions against our Republic. If [South Korea] takes a direct part in the U.N. sanctions, the DPRK will take strong physical counter-measures against it,” the CPRF statement said, according to a report by the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA).
“We have already proclaimed that we will respond to provocations with an immediate counterstrike, and that we will answer a war of aggression with a great reunification war of justice,” the statement also said. "Sanctions mean a war and a declaration of war against us.”
This last phrase “sanctions mean a war and a declaration of war against us” was the basic position adopted by the North at the time of the first nuclear test in the spring of 1994. It followed on the heels of a threat to turn Seoul into a sea of fire and was a response to efforts by the Clinton administration to impose UN sanctions on the North. At the time, the situation on the Korean peninsula came dangerously close to war.
North Korea’s talk about declaring war is being seen as a backlash to the so-called “catch-all” clause in UNSC resolution 2078. This clause would strongly limit imports to and exports from North Korea by enabling search and seizure of all items that are suspected to be used in the development of nuclear weapons or missiles.
The sanctions against the North also would implement the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), formerly sponsored by the Bush administration, which calls for monitoring and paying attention to related financial activity. In effect, the sanctions could lead to North Korea being entirely cut off.
“As long as the South Korean puppet group of traitors keep clinging to policies of hostility against our Republic, we will not associate with any of them. As long as they do not abandon their policy of confronting their own people, they should not even think about sitting down with us,” the CPRF added.
The statement only employed the phrase “the puppet group of traitors,” which the North has often used in its criticism of the Lee Myung-bak administration. There was no mention of president-elect Park Geun-hye.
Meanwhile, the North instructed its teams not to participate in the inter-Korean youth and women’s football tournament games scheduled for Jan. 24 on Hainan Island in China. Games with South Korean teams from the city of Incheon and Gangwon Province were scheduled, but have been canceled.
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S. Korean Authorities Accused of Fabricating UN "Resolution" with Foreign Forces
Pyongyang, January 25 (KCNA) -- The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea released the following statement on Friday:
There took place another astonishing case. The U.S. and its followers cooked up a "resolution on tightening sanctions" at the UN Security Council by terming the DPRK's satellite launch for peaceful purposes an inter-continental ballistic missile launch.
The fabrication of "the resolution" this time represents the height of the hostile policy toward the DPRK and moves to escalate the confrontation with the DPRK as it is the last-ditch efforts of the hostile forces displeased with the ever-increasing authority and national power of the DPRK.
What should not be overlooked is that the south Korean puppet group of traitors took the lead in fabricating the "resolution".
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NK blackmails Seoul with retaliation
By Kim Young-jin
North Korea on Friday threatened “physical countermeasures” if Seoul participates in sanctions over its nuclear weapons program.
It was the latest in a string of escalatory rhetoric aimed at regional players after the U.N. Security Council this week adopted resolution 2087 in response to Pyongyang’s Dec 12 long-range rocket launch.
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South Korea’s new leader, Park Geun-hye, was pushed onto political stage by tragedy
YONHAP FILE/EPA - A undated Yonhap file photo showing President-elect Park Geun-hye (right, back row) with her late father and former President Park Chung-hee (center), mother Yook Young-soo (left), sister and brother during her school days.
By Chico Harlan,
Saturday, January 26, 2:57 PM
SEOUL — The first major tragedy in Park Geun-hye’s life was a shooting that took place at the National Theater in downtown Seoul nearly 40 years ago. She didn’t even witness it. She was studying in Grenoble, France, at the foot of the Alps, when she got a worried call from the South Korean Embassy. The official didn’t give any specifics.
“The person only said that something had happened to my mother,” Park wrote in her 2007 memoir, “and that I needed to return home.”
The details that Park would soon learn redirected her life suddenly and irreversibly, ending her hopes of becoming a professor, flinging her for the first time into the public spotlight, and setting her on a course that would lead to the nation’s top office, the presidency, a job into which she’ll be sworn next month
[Park Geun-hye] [Media] [US SK policy
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[Editorial] We need a comprehensive solution to the issue of North Korea
Posted on : Jan.24,2013 11:17 KST
On Jan. 23, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) unanimously passed Resolution 2087, which extends sanctions against North Korea. The measure was taken 42 days after North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Dec. 12, 2012.
As a result, this is the third time that a UNSC resolution has imposed sanctions on North Korea, following resolutions 1718 and 1874, which came after long-range missile launches and a nuclear test in 2006 and 2009, respectively. One intriguing aspects of this round of sanctions is the fact that, unlike past sanctions, which followed a missile launch and a nuclear test, these sanctions are solely targeted at a rocket launch. This indicates how much the international community’s level of concern about North Korea’s provocative actions has increased.
[Satellite] [Liberal]
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NK defector arrested on espionage charges
By Yi Whan-woo
A North Korean defector was arrested Monday on charges of leaking information to the government in Pyongyang about other citizens who fled here from the Stalinist state, announced the National Intelligence Service (NIS).
The country’s spy agency said the 33-year-old suspect, identified as Yoo, served as an employee of the department for North Korean defectors under the Seoul municipal government since June 2011.
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Audit Finds Shoddy Work in 4-Rivers Mega Project
An audit has revealed multiple flaws in reservoirs built as part of President Lee Myung-bak's pet four-rivers project. The Board of Audit and Inspection on Thursday said the audit in May and June last year showed that the wrong designs were used to build 16 reservoirs for irrigation on the four rivers, casting doubts on the structural integrity of 11 of them.
[Lee Myung-bak]
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[Interview] Han Wan-sang contemplates history of progressivism in South Korea
Posted on : Jan.18,2013 16:46 KST
Han Wan-sang, former deputy prime minister for unification
Former deputy prime minister brings his long historical perspective to comment on recent disappointments
By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer
South Korea’s liberals and progressives have never been able to win by themselves. Their defeat in the first direct presidential election in 1987 was preordained, the result of the so-called “DJ/YS” schism between Kim Dae-jung (DJ) and Kim Young-sam (YS). Kim Young-sam went on to win the 1992 election, but even that only happened after he became a conservative himself through the surprise three-party merger of 1990. Kim Dae-jung triumphed in 1997 on the back of an alliance with Kim Jong-pil’s Alliance of Free Democrats, representing Chungcheong province. In his 2002 run, Roh Moo-hyun was obliged to embrace Chung Mong-joon, another conservative. For 2012’s presidential election, independent Ahn Cheol-soo was in the race. He eventually bowed out to let Moon Jae-in be the opposition’s single candidate, but the result was a loss for the Democratic United Party.
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Korea to Buy Navy Helicopters from U.K.
Korea decided on Tuesday to buy AW-159 Wildcat multi-purpose helicopters from the U.K. for Navy missions like antisubmarine operations.
Only two weeks ago, many in the Navy and industry still predicted that the nod would go to the MH-60R Seahawk made by Sikorsky of the U.S. due to its better performance.
[Military balance] [Arms sales]
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Korea Develops Own GPS-Guided Bomb
South Korea has developed its own bombs guided by global positioning devices so they can hit hidden targets as far as 100 km away.
The GPS-guided bombs are designed to take out North Korean artillery positions concealed behind mountains.
A GPS-guided bomb hits a target at a test site on the western coast. /Courtesy of the Agency for Defense Development A GPS-guided bomb hits a target at a test site on the western coast. /Courtesy of the Agency for Defense Development
Each costs W100 million (US$1=W1,056), which makes them significantly cheaper than guided missiles, the Defense Ministry said Monday.
[Military balance]
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N.Korea 'Encouraged' by Park's Overtures
North Korea is "sincerely" interested in improving ties with Washington and "encouraged" by South Korean president-elect Park Geun-hye's offer of a summit, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson said Thursday.
Richardson was speaking in Beijing after a visit to Pyongyang alongside Google chairman Eric Schmidt.
Park during her election campaign pledged take a more active approach to dialogue with North Korea than the Lee Myung-bak administration.
Google chairman Eric Schmidt (center) is surrounded by reporters on arrival at Beijing Capital International Airport after his visit to North Korea. /AFP-Yonhap Google chairman Eric Schmidt (center) is surrounded by reporters on arrival at Beijing Capital International Airport after his visit to North Korea. /AFP-Yonhap
Richardson said "dialogue rather than conflict" is needed at this time of leadership changes in South Korea and Japan. He urged North Korea to halt its missile and nuclear programs when he met vice foreign minister Ri Yong-ho and other officials.
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President Lee’s corrupt relatives and associates could be pardoned
Posted on : Jan.10,2013 15:54 KST
Lee Sang-deuk, Choi Si-joong and Chun Shin-il (frome the left)
This would be the first time a sitting president pardoned a relative convicted of corruption
By Ahn Chang-hyun, staff reporter
With little more than a month left before the end of Lee Myung-bak’s term as president of South Korea, Lee is thinking about offering, in the name of national solidarity, special amnesty to people who are close to him. The public is up in arms over the possibility that among those pardoned could be former lawmaker and older brother of the president Lee Sang-deuk, former chairman of the Korea Communications Commission Choi Si-joong, and Sejoong Namo Tour Chairman Chun Shin-il.
“In the interest of achieving national harmony at the end of Lee’s presidency, we are considering whether to approve numerous requests for special amnesty,” Blue House spokesman Park Jung-ha said on Jan. 9. “Those to be amnestied and the timing involved have yet to be decided. As of yet, anything is possible.”
[Corruption] [Lee Myung-bak]
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[Editorial] Hawkish early rumblings on North Korea from Park’s team
Posted on : Jan.9,2013 15:47 KST
On Jan. 7, Kim Jang-su, head of the national security subcommittee of Park Geun-hye’s the presidential transition team, made some grave remarks about the foreign affairs and national security policy of the next administration. Regarding an appropriate response to North Korea’s long-range missile launch, he said to a group of reporters, “We need to draw upon the help of the international community to implement a strategy of isolation that includes sanctions. Our only option is to receive the assistance of neighboring countries.”
Kim also revealed plans to move forward with early deployment of long-range ballistic missiles. The missiles’ range was increased to 800km in a revision of the US-South Korean missile guidelines last year. Both of these remarks indicate a hard-line stance toward North Korea.
There are two points here that compel us to take Kim’s statement seriously. First is the fact that Kim is on the foreign affairs defense and unification subcommittee, which oversees president-elect Park’s foreign affairs and national security policies. Second is the fact that the comments were made despite the gag order put in place by Kim Yong-jun, chairperson of the transition committee. Since Kim Jang-su took these things into account before making the comments, it is no stretch to infer that his words represent Park’s actual intentions.
[SK NK Policy]
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Senior official: North Korea demanded millions in aid to participate in summit
Posted on : Jan.9,2013 11:48 KSTModified on : Jan.9,2013 11:53 KST
Lack of official meetings under Lee administration may be attributable to refusal to provide aid
By Ahn Chang-hyun, staff reporter
The reason no inter-Korean summits were held under the Lee Myung-bak administration is because North Korea demanded between US$500 million and US$600 million worth of aid in exchange for participation, a senior government official claimed on Jan. 2.
During a meeting with reporters, the senior official who spoke on condition of anonymity said, “there has been a lot of dialogue between North and South under the [Lee] administration, and we’ve had numerous discussions toward holding a summit meeting, but they didn’t work out because North Korea was demanding rice, fertilizer, and things like that as a condition for participating in talks.”
The official said the materials demanded by Pyongyang were worth between roughly US$500 million to US$600 million.
This is the first time a senior Lee administration official has gone on record about summit plans being thwarted by North Korean demands
[Lee Myung-bak]
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Living with Two Nations Under One Roof
By Ra Jong-Yil
I am presenting this small piece on the following assumptions: I do not believe that the unification of Korea will be possible in the near future. Nor do I believe that it would be desirable if its cost were high in terms of human sacrifice. The two societies have already evolved so apart from one another that it will not be possible for them to come under one roof for a very long time. The structures of power have also become so deeply entrenched on both sides that one cannot imagine they could be fused together peacefully. The best we can hope for is that the two sides will be able to create a regime under which they can coexist in peace like ordinary neighboring countries.
[SK NK policy]
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Park offers 'limited' softness to N. Korea
Global Times | 2013-1-7 23:58:04
By Wang Zhaokun
South Korea's Ministry of Unification announced Wednesday that the country's parliament had approved a 9.1 percent rise in inter-Korean cooperation funds this year to 1.1 trillion won ($1.03 billion).
A spokesperson for the ministry said Seoul's offer for talks with Pyongyang is still open.
Days earlier, in an unusual nationally televised address on the New Year eve, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for an end to conflict with South Korea, saying that confrontation leads to nothing but war.
The increase of South Korean budget to fund North Korea-related projects and Kim's speech came as South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is to hand the presidency next month to President-elect Park Geun-hye, who pledged on the campaign trail that she would depart from Lee's hard-line North Korean policy and mend ties with the North.
Such moves are spurring renewed expectations that there will be a turnaround in inter-Korean relations under Park's presidency.
But analysts said although Park is likely to adopt a more flexible policy toward North Korea and push for reengagement once officially taking office in late February, she is unable to take any drastic measures to reverse the current government's position.
Middle ground
During the presidential campaign, Park sought to distance herself from Lee's hard line North Korea policy, although she and Lee belong to the same party.
[Park Geun-hye] [SK NK policy]
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Park Geun-hye’s North Korea policy
Posted on : Jan.8,2013 15:28 KST
Modified on : Jan.8,2013 15:57 KST
President-elect Park Geun-Hye, a daughter of a late troops ruler Park Chung-hee, meets with Kim Jong Il on a outing to North Korea in 2002.
So far, president-elect has only put forth “hopeful generalities”, but could offer new start for inter-Korean relations
By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer
From her statements and pledges during the election, president-elect Park Geun-hye’s plan for North Korea policy appears less antagonistic than the Lee Myung-bak administration’s approach, but not as conciliatory as that of the Roh Moo-hyun administration. As a presidential candidate, she tried to contrast her own platform with Lee’s failed policies without signing on for the engagement approach favored by Roh, and by Kim Dae-jung before him.
During the election campaign, Park said there needed to be “an evolution” in North Korea policy.
“I plan to break with this black-or-white, appeasement-or-antagonism approach and advance a more balanced North Korea policy,” she declared at the time. This would suggest her approach will fall somewhere between Roh’s and Lee’s. But it’s still unclear what Park meant by “evolution” or “balance.”
[Park Geun-hye] [SK NK policy]
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South Korea’s President-elect Needs a “Team of Rivals” to Deal with North Korea
By Byong Chul Lee
“The Presidency has become a sort of family business here in South Korea,” grumbled an IT-related businessman friend of mine through Twitter after watching the election results. He went on to make the point that “the main reason the pan-liberal groups have lost support was that they failed to perform effectively on issues of livelihood.” In other words, there was no ‘Rock the Vote’ among liberal voters who felt severely betrayed by the sitting Lee Myung-bak government, particularly on the important issue of inter-Korean relations.
South Korean President-elect Park Geun-hye is the daughter of late South Korean military dictator Park Chung-hee who took power in a military coup in 1961 and ruled until his assassination in 1979. — PHOTO: REUTERS
Unlike my businessman friend who was once a student activist in the early 1980s, a great many South Koreans voted for and elected Park Geun-hye (60) of the ruling Saenuri Party on December 19. As a result, South Korea has become the land of the conservatives, giving power again to the party that has governed the country for the last five years.
Although she herself declined to critique the Lee administration’s policies, Park staked her presidential candidacy on distancing herself from the previous government, whose overall popularity hovered around 20 percent after a series of policy failures and corruption scandals. Fortunately, North Korea’s Unha-3 rocket launch on December 12, 2012, was in no way a hot-button issue among voters. Instead, it convinced many on the right to believe that more sanctions should be imposed upon North Korea. That said, the Stalinist regime’s provocative actions provided fodder to the staunch supporters of Park, most of whom, or their families, experienced the tragedy of the Korean War (1950-53).
[SK NK policy] [Park Geun-hye]
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39% of NK defectors think they belong to lower class
By Yun Suh-young
2013-01-06 19:10
Over one-third of North Korean defectors living in Gyeonggi Province said they consider themselves to be in the lower-income bracket, a survey showed.
The poll conducted by the Gyeonggi Province Family and Women's Research Institute in conjunction with the North Korean Refugees Foundation showed that 39.7 percent of the North Korean defectors living in the province thought they belonged to the lower class. The number was lower than the national average of 45.7 percent.
[Refugee reception]
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South Korea breaks new ground
January 4th, 2013
Author: Hyung-A Kim, ANU
Park Geun-hye’s stunning victory in the 19 December 2012 presidential election aroused huge interest among the Korean people and internationally.
[Park Geun-hye] [Functionary]
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Special feature: Prospects for Northeast Asia in 2013
Posted on : Jan.6,2013 09:37 KSTModified on : Jan.6,2013 09:41 KST
Will leadership changes bring a new atmosphere to the region?
By Park Hyun, Park Min-hee and Jeong Nam-ku, Washington, Beijing and Tokyo correspondents
The climate on the Korean peninsula
With leadership changes complete in South Korea, China, and Japan, the year 2013 could mark the beginning of a new environment for the Korean Peninsula and East Asia generally.
The first test for cooperation among these new regimes will be the proposal of United Nations Security Council sanctions against North Korea for its long-range rocket launch on Dec. 12. Despite expectations that some solution would be found before the end of the year, no headway has yet been made, as Washington and Beijing remain locked in a tense standoff.
In the US, newly reelected president Barack Obama declared in November that his country would reach out to North Korea if it ended its nuclear weapons program. But the administration is also insisting that dialogue is out of the question unless Pyongyang shows signs of genuine change. Now attention is turning to its nominee for secretary of state, Senator John Kerry, who would be expected to go softer and seek dialogue with North Korea.
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South Korea’s New Boss
by PAUL GOTTINGER
On December 19 conservative Park Geun-hye, daughter of former military dictator Park Chung-hee, won South Korea’s national election over her opponent Moon Jae-in of the liberal ‘Democratic United Party’. Ms. Park won 51% of the vote compared to Mr. Moon’s 47.8%. The victory maintains power for the ‘Saenuri’ (New Frontier) Party, which is steadfastly pro-American and has held the presidency for the last 5 years under the now wildly unpopular Lee Myung-bak.
[Park Geun-hye]
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Cheonan Sinking 'Was Revenge for Refusing Aid'
North Korea sank the Navy corvette Cheonan and shelled Yeonpyeong Island in 2010 in protest against Seoul's refusal to provide economic aid, a senior Cheong Wa Dae official here claimed Wednesday.
The official told reporters the Lee Myung-bak administration attempted several times to arrange a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il but was unwilling to pay the price the North demanded. Incensed, the North then sank the ship and shelled the island.
The claims from the outgoing administration came a day after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un struck an unusually conciliatory note in his New Year's address and are being read as a warning for the incoming government not to be taken in by his rhetoric.
[Lee Myung-bak] [Cheonan] [Spin]
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N.Korea Holds the Key to Better Relations
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said in his New Year's address on Tuesday that the two Koreas should resolve their "confrontational" relationship and end the state of division. "What's important in ending national division and achieving reunification is to remove confrontation between the North and the South," Kim said. "All Korean compatriots in the North, South and abroad should launch a dynamic struggle to carry out to the letter the June 5 Joint Declaration and the Oct. 4 Declaration."
The two declarations were signed by the two progressive governments in Seoul during the ill-fated "sunshine" policy. Just as the North called on then president-elect Lee Myung-bak five years ago, it is now pressing president-elect Park Geun-hye to live up to the pacts signed with the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations.
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Signs of Change in Kim Jong-un's New Year's Speech
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's New Year's address struck an unaccustomed friendly note. Under his father Kim Jong-il, the customary New Year's editorials in the state press rarely missed a chance to slander South Korea and its main ally the U.S. when there had been an election in the South.
The 2008 editorial, just before the start of the Lee Myung-bak administration, thundered that South Korea must "throw away its confrontational mindset" which names North Korea as its "main enemy." In January 1998, just before former president Kim Dae-jung took office, the editorial said nothing would change in the South simply because of a change in leadership. And the 2003 editorial, just before the start of the Roh Moo-hyun administration, called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea.
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Seoul tells NK to act prudently
By Kim Young-jin
Following a New Years overture by North Korea to improve cross-border relations, senior Seoul officials Wednesday urged Pyongyang to take a constructive path if it wants to alleviate tension.
The remarks pointed at lingering concerns that the North could continue to act provocatively through further testing of nuclear weapons technology. However, with President-elect Park Geun-hye set to take power next month, they amounted to policy recommendations for the incoming administration.
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Military drill
ROK Army’s self-propelled guns fire at a military facility in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday, as part of an annual New Year training exercise.
/ Yonhap
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Kim Jong-un calls for better ties with South Korea
North Korean leader's rare new year broadcast seen as reaching out to incoming president south of the border
Justin McCurry in Tokyo
The Guardian, Tuesday 1 January 2013 11.35 GMT Jump to comments (84)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un makes a rare new year broadcast Link to this video North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, has called for better ties with South Korea in a rare new year broadcast, warning that history had shown that continued confrontation would lead to "nothing but war".
[NK SK policy] [Media]
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In New Year’s speech, N. Korea’s Kim says he wants peace with South
AP/AP - In this Friday, Dec. 21, 2012 image made from video, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks at a banquet for rocket scientists in Pyongyang, North Korea.
By Chico Harlan,
Published: January 1
SEOUL — In a domestically televised New Year’s Day speech, North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Eun said he wants to “remove confrontation” on this divided peninsula and called on “anti-reunification forces” in South Korea to end their hostility toward the North.
The lengthy address, which laid out the national goals for 2013, marked Kim’s first formal remarks since the election two weeks ago of Park Geun-hye as South Korea’s next president.
The North Korean leader asked for a detente — but with prerequisites that the conservative Park is likely to be reluctant to accept. Both sides, Kim said, must implement joint agreements signed years ago by the North and liberal, pro-engagement presidents in Seoul. Those agreements call for, among other things, economic cooperation, high-level government dialogue and the creation of a special “cooperation” zone in the Yellow Sea, where the North and South spar over a maritime border.
[NK SK policy] [Media]
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