South Korean leader talks tough
President says nukes will lead to North’s demise.
SEOUL, South Korea — Stepping up an unusually strong push to condemn North Korea, South Korean president Park Geun-hye told parliament Tuesday that Pyongyang’s insistence on developing nuclear weapons will lead to that government’s demise.
“The North Korean government can no longer survive while pursuing nuclear weapons. Such moves will only lead to their collapse,” Park said in a nationally televised address. Seoul, she said, must “face the painful truth that North Korea will not change on its own” and take unspecified “stronger and more effective” measures against theNorth.
The sharp remarks are the latest in a string of aggressive moves by Seoul following a nuclear weapons test by North Korea in January and a long-range rocket launch this month.
Already, South Korea has closed an industrial park near the border that employed North Koreans; parliament has adopted a resolution condemning the recent rocket launch; and Seoul andWashington have started talking about deploying a U.S. ballistic missile interception system on SouthKorean soil.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations called on member states to pass “a robust and comprehensive” sanctions resolution to rebuke North Korea for its nuclear weapons program. The U.S. is also lobbying for new, tough sanctions against Pyongyang, but has faced resistance from China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and the North’s closest ally.
The approach from Park’s administration has won narrow approval from the public. On Tuesday, Park called for the nation to rally around her policies.
“Aiming the point of a sword back to us and splitting us up are things that must not take place,” she said, adding that she opposed providing large-scale aid to the impoverished North with few strings attached “like in the past.”
Park was referring obliquely to the so-called SunshinePolicy, a SouthKorean rapprochement initiative from about 1998 to 2008 in which Seoul provided unconditional aid to the North, held regular talks between governments and arranged cultural and civilian exchanges in an effort to improve relations and reduce tensions.
The policy spurred unprecedented high-level contact between the two sides and summits between the leaders of North Korea and South Korea, in 2001 and 2007.
But the Sunshine Policy had plenty of critics who saw it as rewarding the leaders ofNorthKorea.
Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor of North Korean Studies at Korea University, has described the Sunshine Policy as “excessively generous,” arguing that it failed to induce any substantive change in theNorthKorean government.
North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, followed by others in 2009, 2013 and this year.
Young people are the least enthusiastic about engaging with North Korea, since unlike their parents or grandparents, they are not old enough to remember a unified entity.