SEOUL, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- A South Korean political heavyweight on Thursday stressed the need to resume the long-stalled six-party talks to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
Lee Jae-myung, mayor of Seongnam, a city to the southeast of South Korean capital Seoul, made the remarks at a forum held in the city to discuss ways for peace on the peninsula and economic cooperation among South Korea, China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
The three-day forum kicked off earlier in the day, attended by experts from South Korea and China. It was sponsored by Seoul's foreign and unification ministries.
Lee is a political big shot here as he competed with President Moon Jae-in in the ruling Democratic Party's primary for the May 9 presidential race.
The mayor said the peninsula was currently under grave situations given that tensions remained between the DPRK and the United States, the inter-Korean dialogue was completely severed and the toughest-ever UN sanctions were imposed on Pyongyang.
Pressures and sanctions on the DPRK, Lee said, were not an end but a means to encourage Pyongyang to come to a dialogue table as a peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue is the only way to denuclearize the peninsula.
Lee said the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs must be frozen first through the resumption of the six-party talks.
Though the denuclearization is an eventual goal to achieve, the freezing should be first achieved and become the starting point to eventually denuclearize the peninsula, the mayor noted.
The freezing will help prevent situations on the peninsula from worsening further, Lee said.
The six-party talks to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, which involved South Korea, the DPRK, China, the United States, Russia and Japan, have been suspended in late 2008.
To achieve an eventual goal of peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, parties concerned should push for multilateral economic cooperation in Northeast Asia involving the DPRK, the mayor claimed.
He said it needed to go beyond the perception that resolving the peninsula's nuclear issue or security issues in Northeast Asia is a precondition for economic cooperation in the region.
Lee stressed that creating a regional economic bloc in Northeast Asia would help resolve the nuclear issue as seen in many cases that closer economic cooperation led to building trust and enhancing peace in the end.
The mayor said participatory countries in the six-way dialogue as well as Europe should be encouraged to join the regional economic bloc including the DPRK in order to prod Pyongyang to establish economic cooperation with its neighboring countries.
He noted that it will help the DPRK reduce its dependence on its nuclear program, calling for active investment in the DPRK's special economic zones. It would help boost economic cooperation between the two Koreas, among the two Koreas and China as well as Russia, Lee added.
Lee also suggested that South Korea and the DPRK should review stopping or halting any military exercises during the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.
It would become the minimum condition to resume bilateral or multilateral talks to denuclearize the peninsula, Lee said.
The PyeongChang Winter Olympic was slated to run from Feb. 9 to Feb. 25 next year at the namesake city. It would be followed by the Paralympic Games from March 9 to March 18 in the city.
The winter sports event was forecast to coincide with the South Korea-U.S. springtime war games as the military drills tend to kick off in mid-March every year and last by the end of April.
President Moon said earlier this week that if Pyongyang stops provocation until the PyeongChang Olympic period, Seoul and Washington could review the delay of the joint war games scheduled during the Olympic period.
Moon said he already made the overtures to the U.S. side, which was currently reviewing his proposal, noting that if realized, it will help create atmosphere for dialogues between the United States and the DPRK and between South Korea and the DPRK.
