Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Ending standoff with North Korea boosts South’s Park
SEOUL: Beset by crisis, scandal and a sluggish economy in the first half of her single fiveyear term, South Korean president Park Geun-hye’s approval rating soared in a poll released yesterday after a pact with North Korea brought back the rivals from the brink of conflict.
Park’s rating in a Gallup poll climbed a remarkable 15 percentage points from a week earlier to 49 percent, the highest in nearly a year, after the accord early on Tuesday ended an armed standoff in one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints and cleared the ground for further engagement with Pyongyang.
She also scored points for talking tough in the midst of the negotiations, insisting that North Korea had to apologise for landmine blasts along their border.
Park, the daughter of a former president who came to power in February 2013, has made improving relations with nuclear- armed and unpredictable North Korea the top aim of her government. Ties between the rivals have been all but frozen since 2010, when Seoul blamed Pyongyang for sinking a South Korean naval ship.
Park has lived under the shadow of the North since her youth. Her mother was shot and killed in 1974 by a North Korean agent attempting to assassinate her father, thenpresident Park Chung-hee.
Nevertheless, she has said her ambition is to engage North Korea and eventually bring the rivals close enough to make unification feasible for most on both sides.
Many in South Korea credited Park’s tough stance for bringing Pyongyang to the negotiating table.
The two sides also agreed to work towards resuming the meetings of families longdivided by the 1950-53 Korean War – an emotional issue.
There seems to be no immediate likelihood of a summit between Park and the North’s Kim Jong Un, but the atmosphere between the two sides appears significantly improved after the pact. – Reuters