President Lee says no compromise against North's threats

(ATTN: ADDS quotes on joint inter-Korean factory park, details; EDITS throughout)
SEOUL, June 6 (Yonhap) -- South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Saturday his
government will not make any compromise in the face of North Korea's heightened
threats following its second nuclear test.
"I would like to make it clear that there will be no compromise against things
that threaten our people and security," Lee said in a speech marking Memorial
Day. "North Korea is threatening the peace and safety of our people as well as
the world by conducting a nuclear test and launching missiles."
Lee's stern message comes as the United Nations Security Council as well as South
Korea and Japan were negotiating possible sanctions on North Korea for conducting
the May 25 nuclear test.
Along with the concerted move, the United States is also reportedly preparing to
impose its own financial sanctions against North Korea.
"North Korea must keep its promise of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and
come back to the six-party and inter-Korean talks," Lee said.
The blast from North Korea's most recent test is believed to have been more
powerful than its first test conducted in 2006, prompting the U.N. Security
Council to start work on drafting stronger punitive sanctions against the
recalcitrant communist regime.
World powers, including North Korea's traditional ally China, unanimously
condemned the North's latest nuclear test, declaring that it clearly violated an
earlier U.N. resolution adopted in 2006 soon after Pyongyang conducted its first
test.
Lee took office in early 2008 and, unlike his two liberal predecessors, adopted a
firmer line by linking Seoul's generous aid to the North with progress made in
dismantling its nuclear facilities.
The move angered North Korea. Since then, inter-Korean relations have
deteriorated significantly.
On May 15, North Korea said it was one-sidedly scrapping wage and other deals
governing an inter-Korean joint industrial complex in the North's border city of
Kaesong. The North also stated that if the roughly 100 South Korean plants
operating there could not accept the new terms, they should leave.
Complicating the situation, North Korea is continuing to hold a South Korean
employee detained on March 30 at the Kaesong park on charges of slandering the
North's communist regime. Little has been heard about how the South Korean
detainee is being treated and all access to him has been denied.
In the speech, Lee called on North Korea to release the South Korean detainee
"unconditionally and guarantee free corporate activities for South Korean firms"
at Kaesong.
On Friday, Seoul's Unification Ministry said it will hold a meeting with North
Korea on Thursday to discuss issues surrounding the inter-Korean project.
Also this week, North Korea announced through state media that it would put two
U.S. female journalists on trial on charges of "hostile acts." There has since
been no word from the North about whether the trial has in fact started or how it
is proceeding.
Laura Ling and Euna Lee, both working for former U.S. vice president Al Gore's San
Francisco-based Current TV, were seized by North Korean border guards on March 17
apparently after crossing into the communist country from China.
(END)