President Lee Myung-bak said Tuesday that North Korea’s economy should stand on its own feet before the two Koreas reunify, stressing that Seoul did not wish for its communist neighbor to collapse.

Lee made the remark in an interview with CNBC television in Singapore early Tuesday, and emphasized that the international standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear programs and other issues could be resolved if the regime opens up and cooperates with the outside world.

“It is not that we wish something will go wrong and North Korea will collapse, because that would put a great burden on South Korea,” Lee said in the interview. “If North Korea joins the international community, its economy can stand on its own and it would be most desirable to have a peaceful unification after that.”

North Korea has relied on outside aid to feed its people since the mid-1990s.

Regarding the eurozone financial crisis, Lee said debt-ridden Greece should accept austerity measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund in exchange for a bailout package. South Korea went through harsher measures, he added, when it accepted IMF bailout loans during the 1998 Asian financial crisis. (Yonhap News)