A Series of Remarks by Lee Myung-bak

Lee Myung-bak, the former mayor of Seoul, visited the truce village of Panmunjeom as a part of his official schedule after declaring his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election.

During the visit, he said that accommodations should be built in the demilitarized zone so that they could be used as a place where separated families from South and North Koreas could meet easily. Also, he proposed to set up performance halls or gyms to allow youths from the two Koreas to play soccer or hold performances together.

Meanwhile, he seemed to be conscious of Park Geun-hye, former chairwoman of the Grand National Party (GNP), and her issues with the rules of the primary presidential election. He said that, “I accepted the proposals of the GNP without conditions because Ms. Park told me not to cause problems to both the party and its chairman a week ago, and I think, at this moment we, she and I, should work together to bring unity and reconciliation to the party.”

Mr. Lee hardly mentioned Ms. Park that day. He just answered “What an absurd…” to her suggestion of “Why don’t you following the existing rules, then I’ll give you 1,000 votes?” He also said that, “I will do what is necessary” after being asked, “Are you going to remain silent on all issues about Ms. Park?”

However, there are some signs of friction between the two presidential hopefuls. He mentioned an episode that made him feel embarrassed when he visited a restaurant in Pyongyang. At that time the owner of the restaurant told him with anger, “How dare you use the sacred word ‘unification’ with a food name” when he ordered food, saying, “Why don’t we order cold noodles all together?” By introducing this event, he said, “Such incidents can take place when we have problems in communications.”

Another remark was made when he was going to have coffee at a resting place on the way to the truce village. At that moment, his aide said to him, “You don’t have enough time for coffee because the driver said he could not wait for more than five minutes. Then he joked by saying, “That is quite a tall order, and he shouldn’t have allowed me to get off at the first place.”

Moreover, some said, “A terrible event took place in Panmunjeom because South Korea allowed three North Korean guard posts in its zone” at a place where he listened to explanations about the Joint Security Area before entering the JSA. He responded, “Just making concessions is not good; that has caused innocent people to be killed.”

In these situations, his use of the terms: “problems in communications”; “that is a tall order” and “just making concessions is not good” coincidently demonstrate the current conflict surrounding the primary.

Considering his comments, his relations with Ms. Park will not be easily improved. However, many predict that he will provide a solution to this in a situation where the former chairwoman threatens not to participate in the primary election and the current chairman of the GNP now stakes his job as a lawmaker on this matter. One of his aides said, “We can provide a legitimate reason to Ms. Park to join the primary.”

mhpark@donga.com