Park willing to meet Kim without any pre-condition
Print Edition
SOUTH Korean President Park Geun-hye said yesterday she was willing to hold a summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un without any pre-condition but maintained the country still needed an anti-North security law.
An end to North Korea’s nuclear program should be an important part of discussions for peace on the Korean peninsula but it was not a pre-condition to having a summit meeting, Park told a televised news conference. “My position is that to ease the pain of division and to accomplish peaceful unification, I am willing to meet with anyone,” Park said. “If it is helpful, I am up for a summit meeting with North Korea. There is no pre-condition.”
North and South Korean presidents have met only two times since the peninsula was divided at the end of World War Two.
The two sides are still technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended only in a truce and not a peace treaty. More than 1.8 million troops are deployed on both sides of their border, one of the most heavily fortified in the world.
Park also told the news conference that an anti-North law, the National Security Law, continued to remain necessary in South Korea. “We need the very minimum of law to ensure security in this country as we remain in a standoff with North Korea, and the law is enforced according to that,” she said.
Shin Eun-mi, a South Korea-born American who came to South Korea last year as a tourist, was deported to the US under the law on Saturday for making positive comments about North Korea.
The first summit in 2000 between then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and then-North Korean leader Kim Jong Il led to a period of rapidly expanding ties including the opening of a factory park in North Korea run by South Korean businesses and a tourism project. South Korea’s Roh Moo-hyun met Kim seven years later and the two pledged greater cooperation.
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