A former representative of the Inter-Korean High officials Meeting, Lee Dong Bok, said in a telephone interview with DailyNK on January 18, “The Ministry of Unification needs to transfer its functions of handling inter-Korean dialogue, exchange and cooperation to other ministries and deal with only unification policy,”

“I agree with President-elect Lee Myung Bak’s opinion that the Ministry of Unification alone must not handle all matters regarding inter-Korean relations,” Lee said, “However, it is not right to abolish the ministry because we still need an agency which takes charge of unification policy.”

Lee continued, “The ministry is now on the verge of doom because it has paid its entire attention only to inter-Korean dialogue, exchange and cooperation while neglecting its obligation to devise policies for unification.”

Lee also said that there should be a separate agency other than the current Ministry of Unification which exclusively handles inter-Korean dialogues.

“We should create a task force team under direct control of the President, which takes complete charge of inter-Korean talks,” Lee said, “Instead of disbanding the Ministry of Unification, we should have the ministry deal with unification policy exclusively. That will inevitably downsize the ministry and curtail its functions.”

If the Ministry of Unification undergoes reform as Lee suggests, the ministry will focus on developing a unification model for the Korean Peninsula, preparing for relevant procedures needed to realize unification, devising a legislative system for time after unification and conducting publicity and education activities for the public.

Lee said, “After the division, West Germany established the Ministerium fuer gesamtdeutsche Fragen (Ministry for the entire-German Problems), but later replaced it with Bundesministerium fuer innerdeutsche Beziehungen (Ministery for Inter-German Relations) under Willy Brandt. The latter took an active role to bring unification to Germany.”

Lee opposes the proposed merger of the Ministry of Unification with the Foreign Ministry, saying “The Foreign Ministry is an agency founded to handle negotiations with foreign countries not to prepare for policies for unification”

“Unification policy and inter-Korean meetings must be handled separately. The former is about developing plans for unification that are viable under the political system of the South whereas the latter is about managing the current relations with the North,” Lee said

“Unification policy must be pursued in a persistent manner while inter-Korean dialogues must proceed flexibly,” Lee said. “The South Korean government has been neglecting to develop policies for unification and paying attention to the dialogue with the North only. In fact, the government failed not only to administer unification policy and inter-Korean dialogue separately but also to allocate an appropriate amount budget needed for policy development.”