Top SKorean politician says North policy failed

Seoul, Feb 6: The front-runner to be South Korea's next president accused the current government today of failed appeasement towards North Korea and told Pyongyang it had no choice but to completely give up its nuclear arsenal.

North Korea resumes talks this week in Beijing with the five major powers in the region and analysts expect the hermit-like state to agree to no more than a freeze of its nuclear power plant in return for substantial aid.

''The essential condition is crystal clear -- everything hinges on North Korea's complete nuclear dismantlement. A freeze is not enough,'' said Lee Myung-bak, a member of the opposition Grand National Party, who is well ahead in opinion polls to win December's presidential election.

''If and only when this occurs, we stand ready to assist North Korea in its road to self-initiated liberalisation,'' he told the Seoul Foreign Correspondents Club.

The former Seoul mayor dismissed the Seoul government's policy of engagement as a failure, saying it had refused to change tack even when national security was under threat.

The South's policy towards its communist neighbour should be based on ending constant food shortages and supporting human rights, Lee said.

President Roh Moo-hyun's government has stuck to a policy of dialogue, investment and aid to try to persuade its impoverished neighbour to open up.

It scrupulously avoids criticising the North Korean government with which it remains technically at war. The 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice and the peninsula remains divided by one of the world's most heavily armed borders.

Seoul did suspend aid after last July's missile tests by the North and there have been no top level meetings between the two since Pyongyang's nuclear test in October. But government officials insist that a policy of engagement is the only safe way to win over the North.

Lee disagrees.

''We must move from an unprincipled and unilateral policy of appeasement to a pro-active policy that results in enduring change,'' said Lee, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as a dictator.

Lee's party, now the biggest in parliament after recent large-scale defections in the ruling party, has been repeatedly attacked in North Korea's state media for raising tension on the peninsula.

''If (North Korean) Chairman Kim Jong-il makes a decisive choice of dismantling nuclear weapons and liberalising the economy, the international community will respond with an equally decisive choice,'' he said.

By doing so, he estimated, North Korea could raise the per capita income of its impoverished population to 3,000 dollars in a decade.

''The choice is entirely North Korea's.''

Reuters

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