Your editorial entitled “Walking a tightrope” (March 30-31) took issue with the recent remark of Korea’s new Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae that South Korea is preparing to propose a reunion of separated families and reopening of long-stalled dialogue with North Korea. The editorial said that it’s ill-timed and inappropriate to say so when the North is threatening a nuclear war against the South. It even said that Ryoo’s proposal “could be denounced as a policy of appeasement.”

However, we rather think that President Park Geun-hye should have made such a proposal sooner after taking office last February, given her immediate predecessor Lee Myung-bak’s misguided hard-line policy toward Pyongyang has wrecked inter-Korean relations for so long. Also, Ryoo’s proposal could even help defuse the current dangerous situation on the peninsula, where a localized war cannot be ruled out.

We must also understand that the North’s intensified threats are a response to the recently stepped-up U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang for its third nuclear test, and the subsequent formidable joint Korea-U.S. military exercises held in the East Sea, which Pyongyang says are aimed for invasion of the North. North Korea’s current bluster could also be its desperate effort to force Washington and Seoul to engage in negotiations with Pyongyang, and to consolidate its new and young leader Kim Jong-un’s rule of the country.

It has become evident that the U.S. and South Korea’s pressures and sanctions on Pyongyang cannot solve the North’s nuclear problem, but made it even worse.

North Korea has developed nuclear weapons as a deterrent for its survival and bargaining with the U.S. Therefore, Pyongyang is not expected to abandon its nuclear programs unless its security is guaranteed and its economic problems are solved. So, the U.S. is urged to actively push for the normalization of its relations with Pyongyang, and sign a long overdue peace treaty with it, which Pyongyang has consistently demanded as the conditions for its eventual giving up of nuclear programs.

Lastly, the Park Geun-hye government is urged to restore deadlocked relations with Pyongyang as soon as possible, so that they can work together more independently for peace and eventual reunification of Korea, without being sacrificed by the powerful nations’ rivalry for hegemony in the region. Both the South and the North should put to an end such an unfortunate and shameful repetition of mutual recrimination and vicious attacks, and avoid becoming increasingly dependent on powerful countries for their survival. Enough is enough. 

By Sung Jae-sang

Sung Jae-sang is co-representative of the Good Senior Citizens Association. He can be reached at jasang373@naver.com. ― Ed.