Former president Roh Moo-hyun on Wednesday counseled against betting everything on Korea¡¯s alliance with the U.S. For the sake of peaceful unification of the two Korea¡¯s "it will be good not to lay stress on the Seoul-Washington alliance as a way to deter North Korea," Roh said in a lecture to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 4, 2007 Inter-Korean Summit Declaration. "If you try to show off Seoul-Washington-Tokyo relations of cooperation by dragging Japan (into the alliance), it will only cause uncomfortable relations with China and Russia as well as with North Korea,¡± he added.
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Former president Roh Moo-hyun delivers a special lecture at an event to commemorate the first anniversary of the Oct. 4, 2007 Summit Declaration in Seoul on Wednesday.
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Turning to the contingency plans for North Korea dubbed Operation Plan 5027 and 5029, Roh said North Korea and China ¡°probably both have misgivings about those plans.¡± He pointed out that the plans did not materialize during his term ¡°because we rejected the U.S. suggestions."
Instead, he stressed the need to build trust with the North to achieve peaceful unification. "I never accepted the (U.S.-led) Proliferation Security Initiative. I discouraged discussion of missile defense programs. I opposed OPLAN 5029 too. I tried to minimize the Korea-U.S. joint military exercises as much as possible. In the six-party talks, I gave the utmost support to North Korea's position."
He said whenever participants at international conferences accused North Korea, he tried to defend the Stalinist country ¡°in a rational way.¡± ¡°In one one-on-one summit, I defended the North for more than an hour,¡± he added.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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