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Turning a New Leaf on the Korean Peninsula?
December 22, 2011 from LinkAsia
Hahm Chaibong of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies speaks to LinkAsia by Skype on the question of whether the government of South Korea should reach out to the new North Korean leadership with a gesture of goodwill.
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Hahm Chaibong:
I think the kind of gestures that we can make is what our government has already said, which is that, "Look, we hope that this doesn't destabilize anything, that everything is stabilized and proceeds smoothly and peacefully."

The basic thing, the fact of the matter is that it's not an issue of what kind of gesture South Korea makes, large or small. North Korea has never responded to any gestures that we make, or the U.S. makes. North Korea does things because they think they make - or when they think they need to do something. When they want to do something. So, again, you know, we can make all the gestures we want, but any seasoned hand - North Korean hand - would know that this is not the time to make any kind of gestures. They don't have somebody in North Korea just yet who can actually even make a decision on whether to accept our gestures. So again, we have to wait until they're very secure. Whoever their new leadership is, they need to put everything in order. They need to feel very safe in the knowledge that they are in full control of all the domestic issues, and then they will come out. And then they will start making gestures. And perhaps it will only be then that they will be able to make any kind of response, or make any decisions on any of the gestures that we make.