President Lee Myung-bak on Monday called for a "grand bargain" with North Korea to end the Stalinist country's nuclear program once and for all. "Now is the time to seek a grand bargain or package settlement. Through the six-party talks, North Korea would first dismantle the key elements of its nuclear program and then we would provide security guarantees and international assistance," Lee said. He made the remarks at a meeting in New York hosted by the Korea Society, the Asia Society and the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations. "We must not repeat our mistake of the past 20 years when we allowed the North Korean nuclear issue to return to its starting point by agreeing to a nuclear freeze and rewarding the North for such an agreement while ignoring the fundamental issue of complete nuclear dismantlement," he said.
Lee first mentioned a comprehensive package in a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in June. Working-level officials from the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, except North Korea, have discussed the package behind the scenes.
But it was the first time Lee used the term "grand bargain" in an international forum. He apparently meant to give momentum to dialogue between the four big powers surrounding the Korean Peninsula.
The five nations facing North Korea in six-party talks -- South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia -- "need concrete discussions to reach a solid agreement on the complete dismantlement of North Korean nuclear weapons and work out action plans to attain this goal. An integrated approach is needed to find a basic solution to the North Korean nuclear issue," he said.
He said North Korea "should not misunderstand this process as a threat to its system or an attempt to encircle it. No nation on earth would antagonize North Korea if it abandons nuclear programs and joins the international community."
But he warned denuclearization "is the only way for North Korea to survive and develop itself."