President Park Geun-hye said Friday that North Korea cannot continue to avoid changes under way in the international community, citing recent diplomatic outreaches by Cuba and Iran.
The United States and Cuba have announced a historic deal to restore their diplomatic ties after decades of hostility. Iran has also been trying to negotiate its way out of the standoff over its nuclear program.
Cuba and Iran are among the few remaining countries that are close to North Korea. Still, Pyongyang hasn’t displayed any signs of ending its decades of self-imposed isolation and joining the international community.
In June, North Korea dispatched a delegation to Cuba in what appeared to be aimed at strengthening ties with Havana as South Korea is seeking to improve and eventually normalize relations with Cuba.
“What’s left is to end the history of division of the Korean Peninsula,” Park said in a meeting with members of a blue-ribbon committee designed to make preparations for potential unification with North Korea. “I think North Korea cannot continue to avoid changes.”
Park also pressed Pyongyang to get back to the negotiating table with Seoul, saying South Korea’s door will remain open for dialogue and cooperation with North Korea.
The two Koreas last held high-level talks in February 2014.
North Korea has remained silent on South Korea’s repeated offer for talks, though the sides have agreed to hold a working-level meeting next week on their joint factory park in the North.
The planned meeting will be the latest in a series of efforts to resolve a monthslong wage row for tens of thousands of North Korean workers hired by South Korean firms in the factory park in the North’s border city of Kaesong.
The factory park, which combines South Korea’s capital and technology with the North’s cheap labor, has become the last-remaining symbol of inter-Korean economic cooperation. (Yonhap)
Park says N. Korea cannot avoid changes
