Park, Moon poles apart on NK

Ahn continues campaigns for ‘innovation economy’

Presidential candidates of both the ruling and main opposition party visited border areas Tuesday but their latest campaign rallies only highlighted their opposing stances toward inter-Korean relations.

Rep. Park Geun-hye, standard bearer of the governing Saenuri Party, toured a site where war remains are being searched for in the border town of Yanggu, Gangwon Province to deliver a message that North Korea continues to pose a threat to national security.

“Without firm national security, there is no economy, welfare, unification or future of the nation,” she said at the exhumation site during her meeting with troops and officials of the Agency for Killed in Action Recovery and Identification under the Ministry of National Defense.

“I will remember our soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country.”

The daughter of the late President Park Chung-hee also had lunch with some 20 female and non-commissioned officers of the 21st Infantry Division to listen to their concerns.

Political observers said her campaign rally in Yanggu was designed to woo support from military personnel and those anxious about the country’s ill-preparedness against the communist North’s growing military threats.

They said that her visit fell short of meeting expectations that she would announce tangible plans to enhance the country’s security posture as she could not go beyond delivering words of encouragement to the troops.

In contrast, Rep. Moon Jae-in, the candidate from the Democratic United Party (DUP), tried to lay down his pro-North Korean policy direction as he continued his campaign at Dorasan Station in Paju, Gyeonggi Province.

“Dorasan Station is a symbol representing both the improvement of inter-Korean relations over the 10 years of the liberal governments and also a sign of the Lee Myung-bak administration’s destruction of inter-Korean ties,” he said, reaffirming that he would uphold the engagement policies of the past liberal governments.

“My policy on inter-Korean relations is based on the belief that peace serves as the foundation for economic prosperity.”

Dorasan Station, located just 700 meters from the border between the two Koreas, was restored in 2007, the last year of the liberal Roh Moo-hyun administration, to allow freight trains to travel to the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea.

The operation of the northernmost station was suspended as tensions grew under the conservative Lee administration, which has taken a hard-line policy toward Pyongyang since it took office in 2008.

Moon said, if elected, he will create a Northeast Asian economic community and invite the North to join.

The former chief of staff to the late Roh also urged the government to resume reunions of separated families and provision of relief aid to the North and address concerns over North Korean fishing vessels that cross into the southern side of the maritime border. <The Korea Times/Lee Tae-hoon>

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