South Korea said Tuesday it pursues a "peaceful and gradual" reunification with North Korea based on a consensus, spurning speculation that it may be hoping to absorb the impoverished neighbour.
"We want to open the future of the Korean Peninsula through comprehensive cooperation between the North and the South," Unification Minister Hyun In-taek told an academic forum here. "We aim at a peaceful and gradual unification based on agreement between the North and South."
The comments came after President Lee Myung-bak proposed on Aug. 15 a "unification tax" that he said will help tackle the costs of merging the two Koreas if such a political development takes place. The proposal generated
speculation that Seoul may be waiting for Pyongyang to implode because the relations between the divided states are at the lowest ebb in years.
In an interview with local media last week, Hyun said that Lee's proposal had not taken the scenario of a radical contingency in the North into account. His comments on Tuesday built upon the interview as he set out the diplomatic guidelines Seoul will take in merging with North Korea. The emotional, decades-old goal has often been overshadowed by tension between the sides, particularly after the 1950-53 Korean War which ended in a truce.
The notion of Seoul absorbing Pyongyang surfaced prominently in the 1990s after the Soviet Union evaporated, leading observers to think that the North, troubled by natural disasters and the death of its founder, would
soon collapse as well. The talk triggered a harsh reaction from Pyongyang.