President Park Geun-hye on Monday urged North Korean officials and ordinary people to join Seoul’s efforts for reunification, while reiterating her calls for Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambition.

During her address for the 71st Liberation Day, Park also defended Seoul’s decision to station the U.S.’ advanced missile defense assets here as a necessary step to counter Pyongyang’s “reckless threats.”

“Officials of the regime and all North Koreans, a unification will offer a fresh chance for all of you to be treated equally without any discrimination and disadvantages, use your potential and pursue happiness,” the president said.
The remarks were seen to draw a line between the communist leadership and other executives and rank-and-file citizens, highlighting the grave human rights and living situations that resulted from leader Kim Jong-un’s “wrong choices.”

“I want you to join me in opening a new era of a unified Korea where the fears of nuclear weapons and war vanish and human dignity is venerated.”

Park also spent the bulk of her speech lauding the country’s rapid economic and cultural ascent as well as addressing other domestic challenges, in contrast to past speeches where she had focused on criticizing North Korea’s ongoing atomic development and Japan’s historical revisionist push.

Yet she failed to outline concrete ways to tackle pressing issues at hand, instead lambasting her critics for their “self-contempt and pessimism” on topics ranging from economic woes and North Korea’s nuclear conundrum to the current standoff with China over the antimissile program.

“I urge the North Korean authorities to immediately cease the development of weapons of mass destruction including nuclear arms and threats of provocations against the South,” she said.

With debate persisting over Seoul’s decision to install the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system here, Park once again portrayed its nature as “self-defensive,” dismissing opposition from Beijing, which sees it as participating in a U.S.-led global regime targeting China.

“I believe such an issue on which the lives of our citizens hinges should never be subject to political strife. If there are other ways to protect the nation and people, please present an alternative,” she said.

Since her swearing-in in February 2013, Park has spent a large part of her annual Aug. 15 speech, which marks the country’s liberation from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule, shedding light on Korea’s sufferings and stepping up pressure on Tokyo to acknowledge war atrocities and provide an apology.

But this year, Japan-related content was reduced to a mere one sentence that the bilateral relationship should be “remade toward a future-oriented one while looking squarely at history.”

This appears to reflect her administration’s efforts to refrain from rekindling historical tensions in the wake of the two countries’ settlement last December on Japan’s sexual enslavement of Korean women.

“What we need now is not vague hope, but forward-looking and creative thinking based on level-headed awareness of reality,” Park added.

Her address, however, drew skepticism from the opposition camp chiefly for its lack of a detailed plan to prop up the faltering economy or any signals of a change in her much-decried manner -- or utter absence -- of communication with dissenters. 

In another mishap, Park came under fire across social networks after erroneously stating that Korean independence fighter Ahn Jung-geun died in Harbin, China. He in fact passed away in Lushun Prison in 1910 following his assassination of former Resident-General of Korea Hirobumi Ito in Harbin the previous year.

“Today the president delivered her intact views only, failing to mention critical livelihood issues such as economic polarization, low fertility and high unemployment, as well as the quality of lives of the people,” Rep. Park Kwang-on, the chief spokesperson of the main opposition The Minjoo Party of Korea, said in a commentary.

“The people had hoped that the president would shift her ways of statecraft and become more active in communicating with them, but unfortunately there were no such signs in the speech,” he added, expressing “frustration,” especially over the THAAD issue.

The minor opposition People’s Party called for the president to explore how to break the protracted deadlock with North Korea, while urging Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table, which it labeled the “only way toward peace.”

“(Given) how strained inter-Korean ties have been, the president should make efforts to reopen the firmly closed door for dialogue,” its top spokesman Rep. Son Kum-ju said.

By Shin Hyon-hee(heeshin@heraldcorp.com)