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Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan said Wednesday the relationship between the two Koreas is the most stable it has been in 50 years of national division. Asked by Grand National Party lawmaker Park Jin in a National Assembly question and answer session if the government was too optimistic about the nuclear dispute, Lee said, "The inter-Korean relationship has never been so stable; loudspeakers have been removed from the DMZ and the number of South Koreans visiting the North has surpassed 1 million." The two Koreas had used the loudspeakers to blast propaganda across the no-man's land.
Lee also said no nation, including the U.S., China and Japan, ¡°has confirmed that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons¡± and there was no reason to see the present situation as a crisis. He added, "I think the North Korean regime should not collapse. I don¡¯t hope for the collapse of the North Korea."
Told by GNP lawmaker Hwang Jin-ha that the government needs to prepare for a worst-case scenario in the nuclear dispute, Lee lashed out saying the administration was "watching over and managing all things in a democratic way, so that it doesn't follow the footsteps of previous governments, which evacuated the DMZ and rendered the government powerless, like the putschist governments of old." Former president Chun Doo-hwan took power in a putsch on Dec. 12, 1979, when his friend and successor gen. Roh Tae-woo pulled his troops out of the DMZ to help Chun seize control of the capital.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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