Yoon proposes ‘audacious plan’ in exchange for N.K. denuclearization

Aug 16, 2022, 09:30 am

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President Yoon Suk-yeol delivers a Liberation Day speech at the presidential office in Seoul on Seoul on Aug. 15, 2022./ Source: Yonhap

AsiaToday reporter Lee Wook-jae

President Yoon Suk-yeol on Monday proposed an “audacious initiative” to improve North Korea’s economy in return for its substantive process for denuclearization in his speech marking Korea’s 77th National Liberation Day on Aug. 15. “North Korea’s denuclearization is an important prerequisite for sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula, in Northeast Asia, and around the world,” he said.

Yoon’s “audacious initiative” includes providing large-scale food aid, assistance for power generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure, implementing projects to modernize ports and airports for international trade, providing technical support programs to enhance agricultural productivity, assisting the modernization of hospitals and medical infrastructure, and implementing programs on international investment and financial support.

Yoon unveiled the detailed plans for the “audacious initiative”, which he had first revealed in his inauguration remarks on May 10.

On Seoul-Tokyo relations, Yoon said while the nation had to escape Japan’s political control to regain and defend freedom in the colonial era, the two sides are now neighboring partners that must work together to face common threats that challenge the freedom of global citizens. “When Seoul-Tokyo relations move toward a common future and when the mission of our times aligns, based on our shared universal values, it will help us solve the historical problems between our two countries,” Yoon said. “We must swiftly and properly improve Korea-Japan relations by upholding the spirit of the Kim Dae-jung-Obuchi Declaration which proposed a blueprint of a comprehensive future for Korea-Japan relations,” he added.

Yoon stressed the importance of “freedom,” using the word 33 times in his speech. “The mandate of the times calls for countries that share universal values to stand in solidarity to defend freedom and human rights,” he said.

The president also acknowledged the legitimacy of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea and put an end to the controversy over the ‘National Foundation Day’ raised by some conservatives.

“As inscribed in the March 1st Declaration of Independence, the charter of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai and Yun Bong-gil’s spirit of independence, the independence movement during Japanese colonial rule yearned for a democratic republic where the people are the rightful owners of their nation and where freedom, human rights and the rule of law reign supreme,” Yoon said. He put together the Provisional Government and the Democratic Republic, evaluating the establishment of the Provisional Government in Shanghai in 1919 as the beginning of a democratic republic while drawing a line on the ‘National Foundation Day’ on August 15, 1948, claimed by the conservative hardliners.

“The aim of the independence movement was never to build a totalitarian state that represses freedom and human rights,” Yoon said. “Our independence movement did not end that day but continues to carry on even to this day,” he added. “By contributing to global peace and prosperity in solidarity as a responsible nation on the foundation of the universal values of freedom, human rights, the rule of law, we will be able to inherit and preserve the noble cause of those who dedicated themselves to the independence movement.”

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