South Korea's Lee pledges to restore hotline with North Korea

Lee Jae-myung, the liberal South Korean presidential candidate, said Monday he would aim to restore communications between Seoul and Pyongyang — including a military hotline severed two years ago — if elected in the country's June 3 presidential election.
The front-runner in the South Korean election, laid out a number of foreign policy pledges in a Facebook post that included a noticeably softer approach to the nuclear-armed North than his ousted predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol.
'We will pursue a Korean Peninsula where tensions are eased and coexistence is achieved through denuclearization and peace,' Lee, the Democratic Party candidate, wrote.
'The North Korean denuclearization process has been stalled for a long time,' he wrote, adding that the North's nuclear and missile capabilities 'are growing stronger every day.'
'We can no longer stand idly by,' he added.
Lee said that cooperation with the United States would be crucial to any peace push — words that are likely to be welcomed in Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump has said that his administration has been in touch with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and that the two sides could engage each other at some unspecified point.
'To achieve substantial progress toward peace on the Korean Peninsula and resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue, we will work closely with our ally, the United States, and pursue a multilayered framework of cooperation with the international community,' Lee wrote.
'We will push for the restoration of communication channels between South and North Korea, such as military hotlines, mutually suspend acts that cause tension and manage the situation in a stable manner,' he added.
The North cut off the military hotline with the South in 2023, and has further ratcheted up tensions, with leader Kim labeling Seoul his nation's 'principal enemy' while abolishing agencies focused on reunification and threatening to enshrine in the North's constitution a goal of 'completely occupying, subjugating and reclaiming' its southern neighbor.
Under Yoon, South Korea bolstered its defense ties with its U.S. ally, but also put aside years of acrimonious ties with Japan to forge a closer trilateral security relationship with Tokyo and Washington.
Lee has repeatedly played down his history of hard-line views about his country's tumultuous relationship with Japan, hinting last week that he would not take an antagonistic approach to ties if elected.
On Monday, Lee called Japan 'an important partner' and said he would aim to 'strengthen cooperation' with Tokyo.
But he also said he would deal with thorny history and territorial issues in a "principled" way, vowing to strengthen the foundation of bilateral ties by taking a "forward-looking and future-oriented" approach to social, cultural and economic areas.
During Yoon's time in office, Seoul reached an agreement with Tokyo on the contentious issue of compensation for Korean wartime laborers at Japanese factories and mines during Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule over the peninsula.
Officials in Tokyo have been closely scrutinizing Lee's remarks for hints of how bilateral relations could unfold if he wins on June 3, with some concerned that he could effectively scrap the deal.

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