By Reuben Staines
Staff Reporter

Although the North Korean nuclear crisis has hampered inter-Korean reconciliation, it ironically also presents opportunities.

South Korea has a chance to enlist long-term international support for advancing the unification process, according to a former German official who helped manage her country’s reunification.

Irmgard Schwaetzer, who was West German vice minister of foreign affairs at the time of the collapse of the Berlin Wall and served as minister for construction and regional planning in the post-unification government, said the six-nation talks aimed at ending the current nuclear crisis could transform into a framework to oversee Korean unification.

``To realize German reunification it was of utmost importance to have international support,’’ she said in an interview with The Korea Times yesterday. ``I’m sure that will be the case on the Korean Peninsula as well.’’

Schwaetzer, now a member of the board of the directors of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, admitted the difficulties confronting the six-nation negotiations but said the multilateral format has the potential to resolve the nuclear issue as well as more fundamental security tensions.

``This could be a historic opportunity for a multilateral approach that would allow South Korea to play a far more active role, rather than being again reduced to an object in the game,’’ she said.

Schwaetzer also drew close parallels between the six-party framework and the two-plus-four talks that provided a stable environment for German reunification.

The two-plus-four talks between the two German states, the United States, the former Soviet Union, France and the United Kingdom were held in 1990 to discuss external aspects of the establishment of German unity.

The stalled six-party negotiations _ bringing together South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan _ could likewise ``serve as the nucleus for a collective regional security framework engaging actively all major players in the region,’’ she said.

Schwaetzer was visiting Seoul this week to deliver a speech at a conference commemorating the fifth anniversary of the June 15 inter-Korean summit.

She said that following the historic summit in 2000, reconciliation between the two Koreas has entered a stage comparable to the beginning of ``Ostpolitik (Eastern Politics)’’ in Germany during the 1970s.

``At the time, the German government adopted a policy of taking small steps to open up the system in East Germany,’’ said Schwaetzer, a member of the German parliament for 22 years.

``The `sunshine’ policy also aims at taking small steps. But how fast the Korean unification process goes, and how long it takes, nobody knows,’’ she said.

Schwaetzer noted that while unification is difficult to predict or manage, South Korea should learn from Germany in preparing for the problems that result from merging two nations with vastly different levels of wealth and economic development.

``You should do everything possible to enable North Korea to develop economically,’’ she said.

Modest economic reforms attempted so far by Pyongyang have had negative side-effects, pushing the communist regime further into isolation, 62-year-old Schwaetzer said.

``The North is fighting for regime survival. A real opening of the North can only take place under a verifiable and sustainable security environment.’’

But she said there are hopeful signs that Pyongyang’s leadership is willing to change.

The North Korean government has invited the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused of liberal policy, to hold seminars on basic aspects of market economy in Pyongyang, she said.

The third seminar, attended by North Korean economic experts at the People’s Palace of Culture, was held from May 23 to 26.

``This gives the possibility of having a change that is going far beyond economic exchange,’’ Schwaetzer said.