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Foreign minister-designate Yu Myung-hwan
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Foreign minister-designate Yu Myung-hwan Wednesday expressed support for South Korean participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative, a loose coalition of countries committed to stopping the spread of so-called weapons of mass destruction. "We have to find out if there is a more positive way of participation in the PSI after achieving a national consensus,¡± Yu told a parliamentary confirmation hearing. "The PSI is an international effort joined by 86 countries to interdict suspicious ships coming into each country's territorial waters. Some people mistakenly believe that it is an effort to interdict ships in high seas."
South Korea currently subscribes to only five low-level clauses, including one on listening to briefings on all PSI activities, of the agreement's eight. When Washington asked Seoul to subscribe to more clauses right after North Korea conducted a nuclear test in 2006, Yu, then the first vice foreign minister, said at the National Assembly, "Korea cannot engage in PSI activities in waters near the Korean Peninsula under any circumstances."
Turning to the North Korean nuclear issue, Yu said he was ¡°concerned¡± that the denuclearization process ¡°remains at a stalemate in its second phase. But under the Lee Myung-bak administration, we will continue to seek a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue through six-party talks."
Meanwhile, defense minister-designate Lee Sang-hee in the parliamentary confirmation hearing said the new government ¡°can reconsider the timing of implementing the Korea-U.S. agreement concerning the transfer of wartime operational control¡± of Korean troops to Seoul. "Under the agreement, the U.S. is supposed to hand over wartime control of the Korean armed forces on April 17, 2012. We'll push ahead with it as agreed on earlier, but we'll also check and evaluate the changing security environment and our own preparations every year for the takeover."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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