Denuclearization a must for N. Korean people, unification: minister

GWANGJU, May 25 (Yonhap) -- North Korea must abandon its nuclear weapons programs to ensure a better life for its people and unify with South Korea, Seoul's foreign minister said Wednesday.
"We provided a lot of aid (to the North) under the Sunshine Policy, but I haven't heard of improvements in the lives of the North Korean people," Kim Sung-hwan said during a lecture at Chonnam National University in this southwestern city of Gwangju, some 329 kilometers from Seoul. "That's because material aid is only consumed and does not lead to development."
The so-called Sunshine Policy formed the core of Seoul's North Korea policy in the late 1990s and early 2000s, during which the late former presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun sent unconditional food aid and other supplies to the North. Nearly all of that aid has now been cut off under the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration, which has tied aid to the North's denuclearization.
"Denuclearization is absolutely necessary for unification as well," the minister said. "If we possess nuclear weapons after unification, our neighboring nations will not accept it."
The two Koreas remain technically in a state of war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.