Report: North advocate of South ties ‘executed’

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Report: North advocate of South ties ‘executed’

A former North Korean official who advocated rapprochement with the South has been executed, according to as yet unconfirmed media reports.

The Yonhap News Agency, citing anonymous sources, reported that Choe Sung-chol, a point man on South Korea, was put to death last September. While the National Intelligence Service in Seoul and the Unification Ministry said they couldn’t confirm the execution, sources said the fact that the execution was reported shows North Korea is serious about overhauling its policy line.

Choe, as vice chairman of the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee and deputy director of the United Front Department within the Workers’ Party, had pursued reconciliation with South Korea during the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration.

Sources said Choe was a close confidant of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and had a direct line of communication with Kim. But sources also said the ruling Workers’ Party began restructuring the United Front Department in late 2007 and added Choe was forced to work at a poultry plant after being charged with bribery and abuse of authority. Sources also said Kwon Ho-woong, the North Korean representative during the inter-Korean ministerial-level talks, is under house arrest. Kwon was one of the North Korean officials that Park Jie-won, then South Korea’s Culture Minister, secretly met in Beijing to prepare for the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.

Jong Woon-up, former head of the now-defunct National Economic Cooperation Federation, an agency handling inter-Korean economic dealings, has not been seen since November 2007, when he was arrested on corruption charges after authorities found $20 million in cash at his home. He was not re-elected to the post in March and the federation was scrapped in North Korea’s cabinet reshuffling in April.

Lee Ki-dong, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Strategy, said it wasn’t just personal problems that drove the key figures out of the picture. “The North wanted to hold people accountable for the past decade of its South Korea policy [defined by] the North’s reliance on Seoul,” he said. “And these three were apparently singled out as targets.”

What’s happening in the North is in sharp contrast to what is taking shape here.

When the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration took office last year, the very existence of the Unification Ministry, which had taken a friendly stance on North Korea, came into question. But the ministry, which handles economic aid to the North and various inter-Korean projects, has survived the ax and has even hinted at openly pursuing an open arms policy.

The Lee administration wanted to tie aid to North Korea to nuclear disarmament and adopted a harder-line policy. Hyun In-taek, a key figure behind Lee’s effort to build a tough policy line, was named unification minister earlier this year.

But despite a spate of belligerent North Korean rhetoric, Hyun has actually said he is open to dialogue with North Korea.



By Chae Byung-gun, Yoo Jee-ho [jeeho@joongang.co.kr]
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