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South Korean President Vows Stern Response to Aggression

   VOA News | Steve Herman 02 January 2011

Photo: AP Photo/Lee Jin-man

   South Korean soldiers watch a live TV reporting South Korean President
   Lee  Myung-bak  speaks  to  the nation during his New Year's speech at
   Seoul Train Station in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Jan. 3, 2011.

   Both  Koreas are starting off 2011 expressing a desire for dialogue to
   ease tensions.
   South  Korean  President  Lee  Myung-bak  says  his  country  needs to
   strengthen  security  in  the  wake of last yearâs aggression by North
   Korea.  But,  in  his  New  Year  Policy  address Monday, Mr. Lee also
   promised help for the North, under the right conditions.

   He  says  the  door is still open for inter-Korean dialogue. And Seoul
   will  offer  economic  support  if  Pyongyang  demonstrates that it is
   serious about talks.
   But  Mr.  Lee  also  reiterated  a  vow  to  retaliate for any further
   provocations that threaten South Korean lives or property.
   In  its  official  New Yearâs message, Pyongyang calls for talks after
   soaring tensions in 2010.
   There  is  speculation  the  6-nation  talks  on  ending North Koreaâs
   nuclear program will revive this year.
   The  U.S.  envoy expected to lead Washingtonâs team to the talks meets
   with  South  Korean  officials in Seoul Tuesday. Stephen Bosworth will
   then visit Beijing and Tokyo.

   North  Korea  in  2009  announced  it  would not return to the nuclear
   talks,  which  began in 2003, and ordered U.N. inspectors to leave the
   country. It conducted a second nuclear weapons test a month later.
   A  former U.S. State Department adviser on North Korea, Balbina Hwang,
   says  the current diplomacy appears to be leading to a re-start of the
   talks.
   Hwang  said,  "I'm  surprised  to hear myself say that there might, in
   fact,  be  very  well  a meeting of the six-party talks. That does not
   mean  that,  I  think, there will be much progress made at those talks
   toward  de-nuclearization.  And,  I  think,  it's, in a way, seen as a
   method of defusing tensions by all sides, frankly, at very little cost
   to most countries."

   The  South  Korean  JoongAng daily newspaper Monday predicted that the
   leaders  of the United States and China will agree to resume the talks
   at their summit meeting later this month in Washington.
   Tensions  soared  to  their  highest  level  in  decades on the Korean
   peninsula last year. North Korea was blamed for sinking a South Korean
   navy  ship  in March, killing 46 sailors. Seven months later the North
   shelled a South Korean island, killing four people.
   The  two  Koreas  have no diplomatic relations. Peace on the peninsula
   has been kept under a armistice signed in 1953 following a devastating
   3-year war.

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