By Park Geun-Hye, President of South Korea

On February 12, 2013, North Korea carried out its third nuclear test in the run-up to the inauguration of a new administration – my own – in the South. Around that time, the Presidential Transition Committee adopted the “Trust-Building Process on the Korean Peninsula” as a key policy of the new administration.  ….

The trust-building process was formulated to overcome the limitations of both appeasement and hardline policies: while the former depended entirely on the North’s tenuous good faith, the latter implied only relentless pressure. The trust-building process, based on the strength of formidable deterrence, is intended to build sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula by making North Korea pay dearly for its aggressive acts while ensuring opportunities for change and assistance if it is willing to become a responsible member of the international community.

Since the launch of my administration, North Korea has escalated its military threats and bellicose rhetoric against the South. In April 2013, the North took the extreme step of unilaterally barring South Korean workers from entering the Gaesong Industrial Complex, a symbol of inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation, and withdrawing all of its own workers. ….

North Korea finally came to the dialogue in mid-July, and a month later agreed to normalize the operation of the Gaesong Industrial Complex in a constructive manner. As follow-up measures, a secretariat for the joint management of the complex was established, and government officials from the two Koreas began daily meetings. It was a small but significant step forward, considering that inter-Korean dialogue has been virtually non-existent over the past five years, and that tensions stoked by the North reached a peak in the early days of my administration.

SEE COMPLETE TEXT

  Background-Brief, How South Korea’s new president deals with North Korea, Park Geun-Hye