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Lee talks tough on North Korea

SINGAPORE: South Korea’s President-elect Lee Myung-bak on Thursday linked the stability of the North Korean “regime” to its nuclear disarmament efforts and debunked “the special status” of Seoul’s current ties with Pyongyang.

At a press conference in Seoul, the first after his landslide win in the South Korean presidential poll, Mr. Lee said: “I will persuade North Korea that the abandonment of its nuclear [weapons] programme will bring [it] greater benefits for maintaining its regime and for [the betterment of] the North Korean people.”

Regional diplomats said Mr. Lee, unlike U.S. President George W. Bush, was now explicitly linking North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s continuance in power to his efforts to dismantle his nuclear arsenal and arms programme. Mr. Bush, who addressed a hand-signed letter to Mr. Kim on December 1, struck no such posture, as evident from the details released by U.S. officials at the time.

Mr. Bush wanted Mr. Kim to make a full declaration of all his nuclear programmes and stockpile in the context of a U.S. assessment that he was extending “excellent” support to the international community at this time. North Korea’s nuclear facilities at the Yongbyon complex are now being “disabled” under the auspices of the IAEA.

In another politically-loaded message to Mr. Kim, Mr. Lee said: “For North Korea, to give up its nuclear weapons is to ensure its development. Through the de-nuclearisation of the peninsula, the South and the North can open a new era of cooperation. … Criticism that comes with affection [regarding Mr. Kim’s human rights ‘record’] can help make North Korean society healthy… I will make a change from the previous [Roh Moo-hyun] administration that completely refrained from criticising North Korea and pandered to it in a one-sided way.”

By so linking Seoul’s economic aid to Pyongyang conditional upon its nuclear and human rights records, Mr. Lee is seen to be striking a hawkish posture. Mr. Lee will assume office on February 25; and his Grand National Party has asked Mr. Roh to veto the poll-eve parliamentary bill that provides for a probe into a financial “scandal” involving the new President-elect.

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