Seoul, Sep 17 (IANS): South Korea’s Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Thursday that resuming dialogue with North Korea would never be possible if Pyongyang is asked to denuclearise first.
He made the remarks in an opening address at a ministry-hosted academic forum on peaceful coexistence with North Korea.
“We cannot start any discussion by repeating the past approach; action first, compensation later, with denuclearisation as a precondition,” he said, adding that such an approach would keep any dialogue from ever getting off the ground.
Chung also argued that a breakthrough in stalled inter-Korean relations and lasting peaceful coexistence would remain out of reach, as long as the armistice system persists.
The 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, Yonhap News Agency reported.
“This is why the Lee Jae Myung administration has argued the armistice on the Korean Peninsula should be replaced with a peace regime,” he said.
For lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula, Chung called for handling several issues simultaneously under what he termed a “basket” approach, which includes an end to the Korean War, institutionalising peaceful coexistence, normalising relations between Pyongyang and Washington, halting North Korea’s nuclear program and reviving inter-Korean economic cooperation.
The issues in the basket are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, and should move forward together, he said.
On Thursday, Chung also said that the government has no plan to seek further legal action against North Korea for damaging South Korean properties in the reclusive North.
The minister was responding to questions during a parliamentary session about whether Seoul would file similar lawsuits, after a court ordered North Korea a day earlier to pay the South Korean government 44.6 billion won (USD 32.5 million) for demolishing the inter-Korean liaison office in the North Korean border town of Kaesong in 2020.
Chung called the demolition “a wrong thing to do that shocked the South Korean public” and said the ruling confirmed it was illegal and violated inter-Korean agreements.
The minister said, however, the government would not file additional lawsuits “out of practicality.”
“It is practically impossible to execute a court ruling against North Korea,” he said.
The North blew up the joint liaison office building on June 16, 2020, in protest of Seoul’s failure to stop North Korean defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.
It also demolished several South Korean-built tourism facilities at the Mount Kumkang resort between 2019 and early 2025.
