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It was the South Korean delegation that first raised the idea of establishing a special peace and cooperation zone in the West Sea and proposed defense ministers' talks on the matter during the inter-Korean summit early this month, it emerged Thursday. The matter is controversial since critics believe it will affect the integrity of the Northern Limit Line, which has functioned as the de-facto sea border between the two Koreas. Before the summit, Seoul vowed it would not raise the NLL issue first but would discuss it if the North brought it up.
Grand National Party lawmaker Kwon Young-se, a member of the National Assembly Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee, obtained a confidential document of the National Intelligence Service on agreements reached at the summit and classified by who proposed what.
According to the document, the South Korean delegation first proposed the peace zone in the West Sea, holding defense ministers' talks, forming an inter-Korean economic cooperation committee, reducing military tension, resolving the North Korean nuclear problem, maintaining reunions of separated families, and holding regular inter-Korean summits.
The defense ministers, in talks slated for November, are to discuss a joint fishing area in the West Sea around the NLL.
Presidential chief of staff Moon Jae-in in September told the National Assembly, "Whether we want it or not, there is the likelihood that the NLL issue will be discussedˇ± during the inter-Korean summit. ˇ°Regardless of our own preferences, there are some agenda items that the North will likely bring up during the summit."
He then implied that if the North Korean delegation brought the matter up, South Korea would handle it by counter-proposing a joint fishing area. But once the summit was over, Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung repeatedly said the NLL never came up.
"It turns out after all that the South Korean government first touched on the NLL unprompted as part of its 'new approach', even though North Korea didn't raise it at all," Rep. Kwon said. A Unification Ministry official on Thursday said the joint fishing area was ˇ°one thing and the NLL quite another.ˇ±
Meanwhile, North Korea took the initiative in urging national unification, commemorating the June 15, 2000 South-North Joint Declaration, holding inter-Korean prime ministers' talks, and using the reconnected Gyeongui Railway Line to carry a joint cheerleading squad during the Beijing Olympics. Only some items in the joint declaration that finished the summit -- seeking to declare an end to the war, an overhaul of two Koreas' respective legislative and institutional apparatuses, a discussion of repairs of the Kaesong-Sinuiju railroad and the Kaesong-Pyongyang expressway for joint use, and tours to Mt. Baekdu -- were actually discussed during the summit, the document shows.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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