2013-02-01 09:26:34
Experts urge aid for N. Korea to promote peace
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| Participants of the two-day forum, “The Future of the Korea Peninsula: Unification or Perpetual Division,” exchange views on how to deal with North Korea at the Plaza Hotel in Seoul, Wednesday. The forum was hosted by the Hansun Foundation in Seoul and The Heritage Foundation based in Washington D.C. / Courtesy of Hansun Foundation |
By Kang Hyun-kyung
The international community should assist North Korea in transforming from an impoverished nation into a normal state because this will help achieve a unified Korea, experts said Wednesday.
During a forum hosted by the Hansun Foundation in collaboration with the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, think tank experts and government officials called on governments to use a policy mix to resolve the North Korea nuclear program.
In opening remarks, Park Se-il, president of the Hansun Foundation, said nations should draw up a plan to counter any negative fallout from a sudden change in the North.
“We are standing at the crossroads. The normalization of North Korea is one of the crucial elements that need to be done to prepare for unification of the two Koreas,” he stressed.
Edwin Feulner, president of The Heritage Foundation, also gave opening remarks at The Plaza Hotel in Seoul.
In a paper released before the forum, Chun Yung-woo, a senior presidential secretary for national security and foreign policy, noted that South Korea should develop its capabilities to defend and thwart the North’s nuclear and missile threats.
Chun said unification is the ultimate and long-term goal the South should pursue and that in the meantime governments need to give one more chance to diplomacy to resolve the North Korean threat.
He added that the South needs to draw up a contingency plan although he is not an advocate of a collapse of the North or regime change there.
Yu Myung-hwan, a former foreign minister, stressed the role of China, North Korea’s decades-long benefactor, to foster change in the North.
Participants of the two-day forum presented diverse views that would allow North Korea to achieve reform and open its economy to the outside world. Some experts called for the need to strengthen Korea-U.S. defense capabilities to counter North Korean provocations, some noted governments should be vocal on the North Korean human rights issue and take proactive measures to help refugees from the Stalinist state.
Experts from South Korea, the United States, China and Japan gathered at the forum to exchange their ideas on the topic.
Joining the forum were Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik; Song Dae-sung, president of the Sejong Institute; Taku Yamasaki, former vice president of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan; and Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
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