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    January 02, 2012

Seoul Sees Opportunity for Better Ties with North Korea

   President Lee: South Korea ready to resolve security concerns

   Steve Herman | Seoul
   Photo: YONHAP
   New North Korean leader Kim Jong Un

   South Korea's president is predicting "big changes" on the peninsula
   following last month's death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

   President Lee Myung-bak, delivering his nationally televised New Year's
   address Monday, spoke of a turning point that he hopes can lead to
   progress.

   Mr. Lee says South Korea is ready to resolve security concerns on the
   peninsula and provide assistance to revive impoverished North Korea's
   economy. But that can only happen, he explains, if Pyongyang suspends
   its nuclear development and an agreement can be reached at six-party
   talks.
   The international talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program have been on
   hiatus for several years.
   The South Korean president also reiterated a warning that Seoul will
   respond strongly to any further provocation from Pyongyang.
   Tension on the peninsula soared to its highest level in decades after
   two fatal incidents last year that the South blamed on the North: the
   sinking of a coastal naval vessel and the shelling of an island near
   disputed frontier waters in the Yellow Sea.
   North Korea is maintaining its harsh criticism of the South Korean
   president. The latest commentary in a party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun,
   demands Mr. Lee "kneel down and apologize" for his stance towards the
   North.
   Pyongyang does not have diplomatic relations with either Seoul or
   Washington. The two Koreas never signed a peace treaty following their
   civil war six decades ago. But during 2011 North Korea was engaged in
   separate one-on-one preliminary talks with both South Korea and the
   United States. Those discussions, prior to Kim Jong Il's death, raised
   hopes there might be a resumption soon of the long-stalled six-way
   talks about North Korea's nuclear programs.
   But the immediate priority in Pyongyang appears to be on securing an
   orderly transition to a third generation of the Kim family.

   The announcer on North Korea' central television Monday requests the
   people follow, politically and militarily, the new supreme commander,
   Kim Jong Un.
   North Korea's New Year's message, carried in the newspapers the
   previous day, urged everyone to be "human shields" to defend Mr. Kim
   "unto death."
   Mr. Kim, who is under 30 years of age, has yet to be bestowed all of
   the key leadership titles of his late father. Besides being officially
   deemed supreme commander of the military and supreme leader of the
   country's only political party, he is now referred to as the "Great
   Successor."
   North Korea's news agency says Mr. Kim, on New Year's Day, was already
   at work. He paid his respects at a mausoleum to his father and
   grandfather - Kim Il Sung, North Korea's founder - and inspected a
   military tank division.