ID :
192271
Fri, 07/01/2011 - 13:24
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/192271
The shortlink copeid
Lee calls for sincere inter-Korean dialogue to overcome tensions
SEOUL, July 1 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak called Friday for sincere dialogue between South and North Korea to rebuild trust, saying that the two sides must overcome tensions heightened after the North's two deadly attacks last year.
"Though a tense situation was created due to last year's blowing up and sinking of the Cheonan and the Yeonpyeong incident, we cannot remain there," Lee said during a meeting of 11,500 pro-unification activists, referring to the naval vessel and the border island attacked by the North.
"In order for that, we should more than anything else restore trust by moving ahead on to the path of dialogue and cooperation with sincerity and responsibility," he said.
The two attacks, which claimed the lives of 50 South Koreans, sent the already frayed relations between the sides plunging to one of the lowest levels in decades and cast dark clouds over the prospect of reopening six-party talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
Still, Lee has said that unification could come at any time and the South should be prepared.
"The day of unification will come indefinitely and the time (to that day) can be moved up depending on the willpower and efforts of the South and the North," Lee said. "What is the most important for us now is the attitude of making substantial preparations for unification."
Lee called unification the "way for the Korean Peninsula to open a new era of Northeast Asia and get into the ranks of the world's first-class nations."
"The fruits that unification will bring us will be greater and more valuable than any prices that we have to pay in the course of that," he said.
Korea was divided right after its liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule. The North's 1950 invasion of the South touched off a three-year Korean War that ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty, leaving the sides still technically at war.
"Though a tense situation was created due to last year's blowing up and sinking of the Cheonan and the Yeonpyeong incident, we cannot remain there," Lee said during a meeting of 11,500 pro-unification activists, referring to the naval vessel and the border island attacked by the North.
"In order for that, we should more than anything else restore trust by moving ahead on to the path of dialogue and cooperation with sincerity and responsibility," he said.
The two attacks, which claimed the lives of 50 South Koreans, sent the already frayed relations between the sides plunging to one of the lowest levels in decades and cast dark clouds over the prospect of reopening six-party talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
Still, Lee has said that unification could come at any time and the South should be prepared.
"The day of unification will come indefinitely and the time (to that day) can be moved up depending on the willpower and efforts of the South and the North," Lee said. "What is the most important for us now is the attitude of making substantial preparations for unification."
Lee called unification the "way for the Korean Peninsula to open a new era of Northeast Asia and get into the ranks of the world's first-class nations."
"The fruits that unification will bring us will be greater and more valuable than any prices that we have to pay in the course of that," he said.
Korea was divided right after its liberation from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule. The North's 1950 invasion of the South touched off a three-year Korean War that ended in a truce in 1953, not a peace treaty, leaving the sides still technically at war.
