South Korea calls for ‘new era of peace’ with North’s regime

SOUTH Korea’s president urged rival North Korea yesterday to use the transition of leadership after Kim Jong Il’s death to usher in a new era of peace on the tense Korean peninsula, even as he warned the North against any provocations.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak reached out in his New Year’s message to the North Korean government now led by Kim’s son, Kim Jong Un, saying he has high hopes for a breakthrough this year in negotiations over the North’s nuclear programme.

However, Lee warned that Seoul would respond sternly to any North Korean provocations. Relations between the rival Koreas dropped to their lowest point in decades following the 2010 sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors and North Korea’s deadly shelling of a front-line island later that year.