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South Korean Ruling Party Head Eyes Visit to Pyongyang

Posted on: Friday, 7 October 2005, 06:00 CDT

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap

Tokyo, 7 October: The head of South Korea's ruling Uri Party said Thursday [6 October] that he will push for visiting North Korea for a meeting with its leader Kim Jong-il to call for an early inter- Korean summit.

"I will press ahead with a plan to visit North Korea," Rep Moon Hee-sang told South Korean reporters here. "I will meet with Kim and propose holding a summit between the two Koreas as he promised five years ago."

The two Koreas held a historic summit of their leaders in June 2000. At that time, Kim promised to reciprocate then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's visit to Pyongyang at an early date, but he has so far failed to deliver on his promise.

Regarding Moon's comments, his spokesman Jun Byung-hun said Moon will visit Pyongyang within this year or early next year and that the governing party will consult with the Seoul government on the matter.

Moon has been in Tokyo since Wednesday for discussions with Japanese officials, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura, on ways of increasing cooperation between the countries. He returns to Seoul on Friday.

Moon also claimed earlier in the day that there will be a significant change to the armistice treaty dividing the two Koreas in the near future.

"There is a very high possibility that the cease-fire regime will be changed within three years," Rep Moon Hee-sang said in a press conference with a group of Japanese journalists.

Moon's claim follows an agreement between the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia at the latest round of six- party negotiations over the North's nuclear weapons programmes on 19 September.

The Koreas remain in a technical state of war since the three- year Korean War ended in 1953 with a cease-fire instead of a permanent peace pact.

The countries at the six-nation nuclear disarmament talks agreed to begin negotiation on a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula as part of efforts to ease tension and resolve the ongoing North Korean nuclear dispute.

Moon, however, expressed opposition to the idea of the two Koreas being reunified in the near future, claiming that a premature or unprepared reunification may have undesirable results.

"The unification of South and North Korea is the dearest wish of our 70 million-strong nation, but I don't think a speedy unification would necessarily have the desired outcome," he said.

"Although it is very unlikely that (the two Koreas) will be unified in the next five years, we must pick the right timing for unification while strategically planning on how much it will cost," Moon added.

He also expressed hope that the six-party nuclear negotiations will be transformed into a permanent international forum to discuss ways of securing peace and stability in the Northeast Asian region.

"(The six-party talks) can provide an opportunity to solidify efforts to establish a multilateral security system and may also lead to an economic cooperation system," Moon said in the meeting.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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