Unification minister says a new approach to North is needed

Unification Minister Kwon Young-se said the Yoon Suk-yeol administration's North Korea policy will be different from previous conservative governments, which stressed that inter-Korean cooperation would only come after significant progress on..

Unification Minister Kwon Young-se speaks at a North Korea policy forum hosted by the Korea Peace Foundation at the Lottel Hotel Seoul on Monday. [WOO SANG-JO]

Unification Minister Kwon Young-se said the Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s North Korea policy will be different from previous conservative governments, which stressed that inter-Korean cooperation would only come after significant progress on denuclearization.

“The question, the one that’s been so hard to answer, is how do we manage to have meaningful communications with the North while implementing measures to prevent further development of its nuclear weapons programs,” Kwon said in a forum of former foreign ministers, ambassadors, corporate executives and academics at the Lotte Hotel Seoul on Monday.

“It is a question that must be addressed with a long-term strategy. If we try to solve the issue within one administration’s tenure, we could end up being played by the North.”

In the discussion, which was hosted by the Korea Peace Foundation just 50 days since Kwon was sworn into his post, the minister alluded to the Yoon Suk-yeol government’s so-called “audacious plan” on the North.

In his inauguration speech in May, Yoon spoke of an "audacious plan" to significantly improve the livelihoods of the North Korean people if the North takes significant steps toward denuclearization.

“Some have gone so far to say that the policy would be the same as what the Lee Myung-bak administration pursued in its relations with the North,” Kwon said. “It would be a mistake to think so.

"The audacious plan is about implementing a step-by-step process to guide the North into substantial denuclearization, rather than conditioning everything on the North’s denuclearization.”

The Lee administration’s North Korea policy, which was dubbed a “denuclearization and openness policy” in 2008, put forward the idea that the South would actively support North Korea with the rest of the international community so that its per capita income could rise to $3,000 within the next decade. But the help would be offered only if the North decided to dismantle its nuclear program.

The North’s per capita income was around 1.38 million won ($1,064) at the end of last year, according to Statistics Korea.

The step-by-step process envisioned by the Yoon administration would involve inter-Korean projects that would encourage the North to denuclearize, Kwon said.

“There are several options on the table when it comes to inter-Korean cooperation, but we will have to reach a consensus on which of them will be the most effective in encouraging the North to denuclearize,” he said.

“And it would be the role of the South Korean government to share this vision with the rest of the world so that we could all see eye-to-eye which inter-Korean cooperation projects would be able to guide the North toward denuclearization.”

While Kwon did not specify which projects would be suitable, he hinted at a need to change some of previous plans, which include an inter-Korean railroad project.

“Some of these inter-Korean project ideas that were put forward previously have been fueled by interests of the South Korean people and businesses,” he said. “We need to be thinking foremost about what kinds of projects would actually benefit the North Korean people and improve their living conditions.”

Participants of a North Korea policy forum hosted by the Korea Peace Foundation at Lotte Hotel Seoul on Monday include Unification Minister Kwon Young-se, ninth from front left, Hong Seok-hyun, chairman of the foundation and JoongAng Holdings, eighth from front left, and former ministers, ambassadors, as well as corporate executives and policy experts. [WOO SANG-JO]

Kwon also tried to distance the current administration’s policy on the North from that of its predecessor, the liberal Moon Jae-in government.

“There are clear limitations in trying to have meaningful dialogue with the North without touching upon its nuclear weapons,” he said. “That is partly why the Moon Jae-in administration had lots of ideas and plans about inter-Korean cooperation but could not make any significant strides on that front.”

Kwon was clear about implementing additional sanctions if the North goes ahead with another nuclear test.

Over the past several months, satellite images of North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear testing site, the site of all six of its nuclear tests, have suggested the regime is preparing for a seventh.

“We will be implementing additional sanctions should the North go ahead with a nuclear test,” Kwon said. “We understand that under these additional sanctions, it will be hard to pursue inter-Korean cooperative projects, such as reopening the Kaesong Industrial Complex, tourism in Mount Kumgang or infrastructure development.”

On North Korean human rights, about which several key members of Yoon’s foreign policy team have hinted hawkish policies, Kwon stressed that the issue shouldn’t be used politically.

“We need measures that would genuinely improve the basic rights of the North Korean people, and not wield them as measures to politically pressure the North,” Kwon said. “We need to practice discretion so as to make sure that North Korea does not lose face in the process of addressing the human rights of North Koreans.”

Prior to his current post, Kwon was a four-term lawmaker who served as Korean ambassador to China during the conservative Park Geun-hye administration. Prior to that, he served as a visiting prosecutor at the Federal Ministry of Justice in Germany for a year from 1992, just three years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

“Clearly we’re in a different place and time compared to then,” Kwon said in recalling the years he was a visiting prosecutor in Berlin in the early 1990s.

“While we can take the policies of West Germany as references, we will have to find our own ways, because North Korea will not be so blind to follow the footsteps of East Germany… What we need to work on are the small, initial steps to build trust between the two Koreas.”

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]