SEOUL, Jan 22 (YONHAP/APP): Unification Minister Chung Dong-young on Thursday committed to seeking a breakthrough in resuming exchanges with North Korea, reaffirming Seoul’s policy of reengaging the regime to promote peace.
“By designing mutually beneficial, multilateral and innovative cooperative projects, the government will find a path to resuming inter-Korean exchanges,” Chung said during a meeting of the South-North Korea Exchanges and Cooperation Support Association.
The association, chaired by the unification minister, is a public-private consultative body on inter-Korean exchanges, comprising 25 officials from the Office of National Security and the foreign, finance and justice ministries, as well as private-sector members.
“The surest path to building peace would be (facilitating) exchanges between the South and the North,” the minister said, adding the government is ready to end hostility and reopen all roads and railways toward the North.
The Thursday meeting discussed plans for nine North Korea-related programs funded by the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund, a government fund aimed at promoting inter-Korean cooperation.
They included the publication of a joint Korean dictionary and a joint survey of the Manwoldae site, a historic Goryeo Dynasty (918β1392) palace located in present-day Kaesong, North Korea.