[imText1]Lee Jae Jung, the Minister of Unification disclosed that special envoys may be exchanged between the North and South, in the case that the South-North summit talks were to reconvene. <\/p>\n
In an interview with Yonhap News on the 8th, Minister Lee revealed \u201cFollowing the nuclear experiment, special envoys will be necessary in restructuring the South-North relationship and not simply for the summit talks.\u201d <\/p>\n
As if to infer resistance of the political authorities, Minister Lee said \u201cIt (the summit talks) will be needed in accordance to the South-North situation\u201d and slightly retreating added \u201cJust as much as the North needs to acknowledge the importance of this, it is now a critical time where the issue of the North\u2019s nukes must be resolved through the six party talks, and hence at this current point in time, there is not a great need for a special envoy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minister Lee expressed his position that the agenda \u201cThe construction of a peace system\u201d would be the most important if the talks were to reconvene. Contrastingly, opposition parties have claimed that in the case the summit talks did not create a foundation where the negotiations is on the destruction of North\u2019s nukes, they argue that then the talks could be used as a political stunt. <\/p>\n
Minister Lee said \u201cAs U.S. President Bush has mentioned already, talks need to be made on the topic of the end of war declaration, peace and connections in the Asia region\u201d and revealed \u201cEven at the 2000 summit talks, not one of the items openly discussed were put into action. Rather what\u2019s more important is to what extent each party will openly speak about what is on their mind at the right time and place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regarding the opportune time for the reconvening of the summit talks, he said \u201cIt is not appropriate for me to state when the time would be right\u201d and \u201cThis is because it is an issue that must be decided by both parties. The desirable case would be responsible talks held at the South-North summit talks in efforts to resolve the peace of the Korean Peninsula and North\u2019s nuclear issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response to the possibility of North Korea\u2019s second nuclear experiment, he retorted \u201cAt this current point in time, no signs have been detected\u201d and revealed \u201cNorth Korea cannot conduct an additional nuclear experiment as it knows that if it does pursue a second nuke experiment, then the result will be harsher sanctions on North Korea as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked whether or not he believed that North Korea had any real intentions of surrendering its nukes, Minister Lee said \u201cDespite North Korea having or not having any intention of eradicating its nuclear program, North Korea must abolish its nukes\u201d and recited \u201cA great deal of time and proceedings will be necessary for complete abolishment.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition, Minister Lee revealed the conditions in restarting aid to North Korea \u201cProgress in the six party talks, reconvening of the South-North summit talks and agreement of the people on it.\u201d When asked whether the fulfillment of one of the conditions be sufficient to restart aid he revealed \u201cIf a major breakthrough is made as a result of the South-North summit talks, it is likely that an opportunity will arise where humanitarian aid is restarted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Furthermore, he said \u201cThe six party talks and the South-North summit talks must be directed towards a relationship of mutual cooperation\u201d and opaquely commented \u201cIf one is unsuccessful, would not the other have to be successful. If all these factors went wrong, agreement of the people would be necessary\u201d implying that if one of the conditions had been achieved, then humanitarian aid would begin once again.<\/p>\n
Regarding the form of rice assistance to the North, he said \u201cThis needs to be clarified. Though we consider it as humanitarian aid, North Korea considers it a loan.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other hand, responding to the issue of former President Kim Dae Jung\u2019s visit to North Korea, he said \u201cThough we consider it about time that another visit be made to North Korea \u2018At present, as the summit talks are more important, it is more important that President Roh will make the trip rather than former President Kim Dae Jung.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[imText1]Lee Jae Jung, the Minister of Unification disclosed that special envoys may be exchanged between the North and South, in the case that the South-North summit talks were to reconvene. In an interview with Yonhap News on the 8th, Minister Lee revealed \u201cFollowing the nuclear experiment, special envoys will be necessary in restructuring the South-North […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":3294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n