New Korean leader wants to defuse tensions

SEOUL: South Korea’s new liberal President Moon Jae-in was sworn in yesterday and vowed to immediately tackle the difficult tasks of addressing North Korea’s advancing nuclear ambitions and soothing tensions with the US and China.

Moon said in his first speech as president he would begin efforts to defuse security tensions on the Korean peninsula and negotiate with Washington and Beijing to ease a row over a US missile defence system being deployed in the South.

In his first key appointments, Moon named two liberal veterans with ties to the “Sunshine Policy” of engagement with North Korea from the 2000s to the posts of prime minister and spy chief.

Moon named Suh Hoon, a career spy agency official and a veteran of inter-Korea ties, as the head of the National Intelligence Service. Suh was instrumental in setting up two previous summits between the North and South.

Veteran liberal politician Lee Nak-yon was nominated to serve as prime minister. Now a regional governor, Lee was a political ally of the two former presidents who held the summits with the North in 2000 and 2007. Lee’s appointment requires parliamentary approval.

Moon was expected to fill the remaining cabinet and presidential staff appointments swiftly to bring an end to a power vacuum left by the removal of Park Geun-hye in March in a corruption scandal that rocked South Korea’s business and political elite.

“I will urgently try to solve the security crisis,” Moon said in the domed rotunda hall of the parliament building.

“If needed, I will fly straight to Washington. I will go to Beijing and Tokyo.”

North Korea is likely to welcome Moon’s election but its state media made no mention of his victory yesterday.

The deployment of the US terminal high-altitude area defence system in the South has angered China, Seoul’s major trading partner, which sees the system’s powerful radar as a threat to its security.