Ahead of the 70th anniversary of Korea’s division, a policy expert has published a book that provides suggestions for Korea’s unification strategy based on Northern Ireland’s peace process.

The Irish Embassy on Tuesday hosted Dr. Kim Jung-ro, the director of the Settlement Support Center for North Korean Refugees, for his new book “The Irish Peace Process.” 

The Good Friday Agreement, signed on April 10, 1998, laid the ground for long-lasting peace and reconciliation, and ended a conflict of over 750 years. Most of Ireland gained national independence from Britain in 1921, but the island remains politically divided between the North and South.

The Good Friday settlement was a political agreement between Northern Ireland’s unionist and nationalist parties, as well as a legal agreement between the British and Irish governments.

Ireland has many similarities with Korea, having survived colonial rule, national division and civil war. The Irish and Koreans share similar cultures, including a shared love of drinking and singing, with Korea sometimes nicknamed the “Ireland of Asia.”

“Every conflict is unique, but there are aspects of our experience that may provide some insight into the tragic situation on the Korean Peninsula,” said Irish Ambassador Aingeal O’Donoghue, who worked on the negotiation process for five years.

“Ultimately, what did we achieve? We moved from conflict to peace, and are currently in the process of building true reconciliation. The peace process gave the Northern Irish people a real sense of security, that they have the key to their own future.”

The conflict, which had killed over 3,000 since the late 1960s, originates in the 12th century when Norman and English invaders colonized Ireland. People now tend to view the conflict in an ethno-religious light ― British Protestants versus Irish Catholics ― but the causes are political, social and economic, the ambassador explained.

O’Donoghue noted that peace was forged gradually through a shared realization that Ireland could not be united through an armed struggle.

“A diverse range of players on the Northern Irish side realized that a violent solution was not going to benefit anyone,” O’Donoghue said, adding that the British government also ended its military operations there.

Brave politicians in Northern Irish and British governments took risks for peace, putting national interests before personal and partisan gains.

John Hume, the founding member of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, and corecipient of the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize, advocated compromise with the republican party of Sinn Fein.

O’Donoghue stressed that the “principle of consent” allowed both peoples to decide their respective futures.

“Our vision is fundamentally that of what the people of Northern Ireland want,” the ambassador told The Korea Herald. “Whether they want to be part of a united Ireland or Northern Ireland, it is for the will of the people, basically.”

She said unification would only happen with the majority consent of the North, adding that only harmonious teamwork would sustain reconciliation.

The commitment to democratic and peaceful means obligated paramilitary organizations on both sides to join a cease-fire and decommission their weapons in a “verifiable and guaranteed way.”

“It was a very long process that involved extremely close cooperation between the British and Irish governments,” O’Donoghue underscored. “In 30 years, the two governments went from opposition to collaboration, overwhelmingly endorsed by their peoples.”

The international community, particularly the U.S., European Union, Finland and the Irish diaspora, played strategic roles, alongside civil society and business communities.

“The wisdom of the Irish experience is that they did not predetermine their destination, but have continuously asked questions about where they were headed and how they could get there. The people of Ireland were wary of their present defining their future,” said Kim, a longtime official at the Ministry of Unification.

The author received his bachelor’s degree in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and master’s degree and Ph.D. in international relations at Columbia University and the University of Cambridge.

He added that his book, written in Korean, did not offer an alternative to the German model of unification, but complementary guidance.

Unlike German reunification, which happened under “very specific historic circumstances,” the Irish peace process is ongoing and more applicable to Korea, the author argued.

“Germany’s reunification was a historic miracle, conditioned under favorable geopolitical currents ― a thaw of Cold War with the Soviet Union declining,” Kim wrote. “But the military rise of China has sparked tensions in East Asia, and strengthened the defense alliance between the U.S. and Japan, precipitating a new Cold War.”

North Korea, meanwhile, has developed nuclear weapons while continuing its human rights violations, further regressing into isolation.

Noting that Korea, like Ireland, has adopted a “peaceful, incremental and consensual” unification policy through the Korean National Community Unification Formula formulated in 1994, Kim pointed to the feasibility of the Irish experience.

The key to their success was the institutionalization of cooperation and power-sharing, according to the author.

Institutional mechanisms, such as the North-South Ministerial Council and the Joint Secretariat, have safeguarded and propelled the implementation of cooperative initiatives. Prime ministers, deputy prime ministers and ministers from both sides have participated in council meetings.

The agreement granted British and Irish citizenship to the people in the North, and through joint projects, the two governments have expanded economic cooperation in various fields, such as agriculture, education, environment, health, transport and tourism.

Most relevantly for Korea, Kim advised institutionalizing the will of cooperation, or pursuing a double-track of political and institutional approaches. He also recommended promoting a healthy public debate and society-wide integration.

Doing so, the author wrote, may break the gridlock that has stymied inter-Korean relations for the past 25 years, and reorient Korea’s official policy, which currently aims at political reconciliation before institutional integration.

He added that the logic of unification should progress from an ethnicity-based concept to an inclusive citizenship, reflecting Korea’s multicultural social transition. 

By Joel Lee (joel@heraldcorp.com)