A South Korean civic group argued Friday that the government is partly to blame for the failure to organize a joint summit anniversary event.
Civic groups from South and North Korea have failed to agree on any joint ceremony to mark the 15th anniversary of the June 15 inter-Korean summit as the North abruptly proposed to hold it separately.
In a statement, the preparatory group in the South expressed regret over what it called the Park Geun-hye administration’s confrontational policy toward the communist neighbor.
“No one can deny that the main culprit for the failed attempt for a joint event is the government’s get-tough policy with North,” read the statement.
A summit between then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was held on June 15, 2000. They produced a landmark joint declaration, which outlines reconciliation and economic cooperation.
The Seoul-Pyongyang ties have been strained since 2010, when the South imposed sanctions banning economic and cultural exchanges following the North’s torpedoing of a South Korean warship and its shelling of a border island.
In what could be a shift from its tough stance, Seoul has vowed to spur inter-Korean civilian exchanges in non-political sectors this year as this year marks the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule and the division of the Korean Peninsula.
But the North claimed that the South’s government set unnecessary preconditions for a joint summit anniversary by stating it would only allow inter-Korean civilian exchanges with a non-political purpose.
The preparatory group said it will hold a summit event in Seoul on a smaller scale due to concerns over the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.
It also added that it will spare no efforts to organize a joint event with the North to commemorate Liberation Day, which falls on Aug. 15. (Yonhap)
