‘Building peace by making North Korea pay dearly for aggressive acts’

SEOUL – South Korea’s President, Park Geun-hye, in an English-language article, "Reinventing the Inter-Korean Relationship", says her Administration will maintain strong deterrence and will co-operate closely with the international community to pursue peace and unification on the Korean Peninsula. She said that her Administration's Korean Peninsula trust-building process is based on the strength of formidable deterrence.

 "It is intended to build sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula by making North Korea pay dearly for its aggressive acts while ensuring opportunities for change and assistance if it (North Korea) is willing to become a responsible member of the international community," she writes, adding that she values the agreement between the two Koreas on the normalisation of operations at the Kaesong Inter-Korean Complex as a "small but significant step forward.”

She said a co-operative relationship with neighbouring countries would help "the practice of dialogue between the two Koreas" (ATI).