S. Korean foreign minister says U.S. plays vital role in inter-Korea stability
By Jeremy Kirk, Seoul bureau
chief
Han |
SEOUL — Labor activists blared music, holding a prominent
demonstration at one of Seoul’s busiest intersections Thursday, close to South
Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs building across from the U.S. Embassy.
The music filtered through the windows of the plush, eighth-floor
office of South Korean Foreign Minster Han Seung-soo. The protest scene was not unlike
many gatherings outside Yongsan Garrison, the largest U.S. Army base in Seoul.
“The large majority of Korean people are very supportive of U.S.
troops in Korea, and in a democracy you are bound to have dissent,” Han said in an
interview with Stars and Stripes. “We let them (protesters) do it because it’s a
democratic nation.”
Han’s government position is equivalent to that of Secretary of
State Colin Powell in the United States. The 64-year-old Han stands at the helm of South
Korea’s foreign policy, overseeing the country’s tenuous relations with its
isolated neighbor, North Korea.
A central underpinning of those relations is the presence in South
Korea of 37,000 U.S. troops, in place as a deterrent since the Korean War ended in 1953.
“Reconciliation has the best chance for success when backed by a
strong U.S.-Korean alliance and combined forces,” Han said.
“U.S. forces in Korea have made a vital contribution to the
maintenance of peace and security in the Korean Peninsula over the last five
decades.”
The U.S. presence has not been without controversy. Many Koreans
question U.S. use of land for training, its respect for the environment and impact on
North and South Korea relations.
Those concerns manifest into what many Americans see in the
warm-weather months as they pass through base gates: groups with posters and bullhorns,
chanting for U.S. troops to pull out.
“If you have 100 percent support, then it’s a dictatorship,
not democracy,” Han said. “It’s quite natural that from time to time that
you have some demonstrations.”
Han says U.S. forces make an “indirect but very important
contribution to the inter-Korean peace structure.”
Last year’s summit between South Korean president Kim Dae-jung
and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il set a precedent for Korea, Han said. It was the first
time since the division of Korea in 1945 that leaders of the two Koreas had met.
Progress has slowed this year, in part because of the change in U.S.
presidents. Han cites 31 minister meetings, working military group meetings and a meeting
of the North and South Korean defense ministers as progress that can’t be ignored.
However, the reconciliation process will be slow, Han said.
“I think it is a slow start, but a start has been made, and we
have to see whether we will be able to consolidate these small gains and confidence
building process to expand,” Han said.
Economic ventures, such as trips by South Koreans to Kumgang Mountain
in North Korea, are important to showing the North that cooperation can be mutually
beneficial, Han said. By showing North Korea that economic cooperation is viable,
it’s hoped the isolated nation will open up more, he added.
“We should not be too impatient,” Han said. “We have
waited 55 years since the division of Korea and it’s just starting.”
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