South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has stepped up his pressure campaign against North Korea by appointing a hawk who called for the destruction of Kim Jong Un’s regime to lead his ministry charged with engaging Pyongyang.
Yoon on Thursday appointed political science professor Kim Yung-ho as the head of the Unification Ministry. This steps up an assertive approach to North Korea that includes tit-for-tat responses to military provocations, closer cooperation with its sworn enemies the US and Japan, and condemning Pyongyang’s record on human rights.
“I will do my best to create a plan for peaceful unification based on the basic order of liberal democracy and to form a national consensus with it,” Kim Yung-ho told reporters after he was named to the post. Outgoing minister, Kwon Young-se, is leaving the post ahead of a likely bid to run for Yoon’s ruling party in parliamentary elections next year, Yonhap News reported.
Yoon, a conservative who took office about a year ago, has pushed for a tougher line against North Korea and stepped up joint military exercises with the US. The previous president, Moon Jae-in, was a progressive who sought rapprochement with Pyongyang and avoided topics such as human rights abuses that could hurt chances for talks with Kim Jong Un.
Since talks broke down in 2019 between the North Korean leader and then US President Donald Trump, Pyongyang has largely frozen out Seoul, branding Moon a “meddlesome” mediator while it steadily built up its arsenal of weapons to attack South Korea. North Korea called Moon’s successor Yoon a “puppet traitor,” while ignoring calls from both over the past four years to hold talks.
The new unification minister wrote in a column in 2019 that: “The only solution to the North Korean nuclear issue is the destruction of Kim Jong Un’s totalitarian regime.”
South Korea’s progressive opposition has said the comments should disqualify Kim Yung-ho from his post and is set to give him a tough time in his nomination process. Yoon can still appoint him, even if he doesn’t win parliamentary approval.
The Unification Ministry in March for the first time publicly released its government assessment of North Korea’s human rights record. The report said Pyongyang, which has bristled for years over global criticism of its rights record, uses public executions to strike fear into its public and tramples over the freedom of its people.
“It appears Yoon wanted someone who can carry out his unification policy based on the protection of liberal democratic values,” said Duyeon Kim, an adjunct senior fellow in Seoul at the Center for a New American Security.
“Kim’s appointment signals that Seoul will remain principled when dealing with North Korea,” she said, adding that Kim Yung-ho has argued for tackling North Korea’s human rights head on and has experience in a previous South Korean government.
--With assistance from Seyoon Kim.