Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae speaks during a meeting with the members of the National Assembly Committee for Foreign Affairs and Unification, Monday. / Yonhap



By Yi Whan-woo

South Korea is considering providing maintenance services to North Korea to help improve transportation infrastructure there, the government said Monday.

This signals that Seoul is softening its stance toward its northern neighbor following President Park Geun-hye's proposal that South and North Korea team up to try and restore the ecological system in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) during a speech on Liberation Day, August 15.

The Ministry of Unification stated in a report to the National Assembly that it is considering providing maintenance work on the highway between Pyongyang and the inter-Korean border town of Gaesong. It added that the government will push to carry out work on the railroad that connects Gaesong and Sinuiju, which lies on the North Korea-China border.

The proposals were included in 96 projects suggested by the unification ministry to fulfill 10 major tasks under the country's second phase of an inter-Korean relations development plan.

The tasks include facilitating further inter-Korean dialogue, increasing inter-Korean collaboration, normalization of the Gaesong Industrial Complex (GIC) in the North, support for North Korean defectors, education to prepare for inter-Koran integration and expansion of international support for unification between the two Koreas.

The ministry said it will only carry out its plans under "favorable circumstances." However, its move is seen as a bid to lift the so-called May 24 sanctions against North Korea.

The punitive steps ban all inter-Korean cooperation, including trading activities, except for those within the GIC. Seoul took the measures against the internationally-isolated state on May 24, 2010, in response to Pyongyang's sinking of the South Korean frigate Cheonan in March of that year.

The report showed that the five ministries of unification, foreign affairs, the environment and trade plus the Korea Forest Service will work together for inter-Korean environmental conservation efforts. It also said the government is considering joining forces with two international environmental entities ― the United Nations Environment Program and the Global Green Growth Institute.

The plan on environmental preservation is in accordance with President Park Geun-hye's proposal, Friday, for the North to join a U.N. conference to be held in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province from Oct.6 to 14.

She said that the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity will offer an opportunity for the two Koreas to work together on ecological restoration and preservation of the land between the heavily fortified border that divides the two nations.