South Korea's top minister handling relations with North Korea yesterday announced his resignation, as Seoul's conciliatory policy towards its nuclear-armed neighbor came in for increasing criticism.
Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok is the second top minister in three days to quit, after defense minister Yoon Kwang-ung. The resignations come just over two weeks after North Korea shocked the world with its first nuclear test.
"I told the president [Roh Moo-hyun] that I would step down and the president said he would accept it," Lee told reporters.
He insisted the government will not drop its "sunshine" policy of engagement with its communist neighbor, which he said had eased tensions.
"My resignation must not be interpreted as any change in the government's policy [towards North Korea]," Lee said. "The president's philosophy is firm and clear. He will maintain the principle and basis of his policy."
Two inter-Korean projects funded by the South -- the Kaesong industrial estate and the Mount Kumgang tourist resort -- have come under fire domestically as a potential source of cash for the North's missile and nuclear programs. They have earned the North almost US$1 billion since 1998.
"The engagement policy has substantially reduced tensions between South and North Korea. And the two projects have played a key role," Lee said. "We should go ahead with the two projects for a while."
The government says it will not scrap Kaesong or Kumgang but may modify them.
US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, Washington's main negotiator with Pyongyang, has questioned Kumgang as seemingly "designed to give money to the North Korean authorities."
But he has said Kaesong was "trying to deal with a longer-term issue of economic reform" in the hardline state.
Newspapers and conservative groups in Seoul have strongly criticized the "sunshine" policy, with some terming it appeasement.
Some 73 percent of South Koreans say the policy should be revised, while about 15 percent want economic ties snapped altogether and 10 percent want no change, according to a telephone survey of 800 respondents last week.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not