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Yoon Young-kwan, who served as the first foreign minister of the Roh Moo-hyun administration, on Monday slammed the government¡¯s North Korea policy as well as its relations with the U.S.
¡°I support the principle of engagement¡± in dealing with North Korea ¡°and will continue to support that,¡± Yoon said in a lecture to a Korean Federation of Teachers¡¯ Associations affiliate. ¡°But there need to be firm rules for engagement policies to prevent the two Koreas from losing their way in the international community.¡± The former minister, who returned to teaching at Seoul National University, said the government should have set the goal of inter-Korean cooperation projects at helping the North Korean economy adopt market principles. ¡°When we took action against people who illegally sent money to the North in the early days of the administration, we had a good opportunity to pursue a more disciplined engagement with North Korea that would have improved on the Kim Dae-jung administration, but we failed to make the most of the opportunity,¡± he said.
As a result, the government¡¯s engagement policies ¡°were reduced to the same as its predecessor¡¯s.¡± He added North Korea as a result ¡°takes assistance from South Korea for granted, not just because it thinks that the South is taking advantage of inter-Korean relations for domestic political purposes but even insisting that South Korea is obliged to offer assistance because it is a beneficiary of its ¡®military first¡¯ policy.¡± North Korea made that claim in ministerial talks that collapsed earlier this month.
Yoon also lambasted the government¡¯s approach to long-term ally the U.S. ¡°It seems that sentimental nationalism has become the most important keyword,¡± Yoon said. ¡°When some people insist that we should get out of the sphere of U.S. influence, can we really say that they are reading the current of the times correctly and willing to open the era of our nation in the future?¡± He said the Korea-U.S. alliance ¡°is the result of a choice we made, which enabled us to achieve economic development and democratization in a stable security environment. If the alliance breaks up and we stand on our own free from any outside influence, does it mean anything when it eventually leads to an inability to meet national goals and to diplomatic isolation?¡±
The former chief diplomat stressed a free trade agreement with the U.S. is a choice Korea must make to serve its national interest. ¡°The question is whether the government has succeeded in promoting an optimistic and future-oriented mindset and view of the world,¡± Yoon said.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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