Staff Reporter
Unification Minister Chung Dong-young Wednesday called for freer inter-Korean exchanges as a top priority to achieve the unification of the Korean Peninsula.

In a lecture hosted by the Saeul Foundation of Culture in Inchon, west of Seoul, Chung said, ``I believe my duty is to help more and more South Koreans visit North Korea freely.’’

``If South Koreans can visit their relatives in the North for a certain period without restrictions, I think that situation could be regarded as a practical unification,’’ Chung, a promising presidential hopeful of the ruling Uri Party, said. ``I believe South Korea is on the right track toward unification although some issues including the return of the remaining long-term prisoners with communist beliefs to the North might cause some trouble due to the anti-communist National Security Law.’’

As for the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program which resumed in Beijing yesterday, Chung, who also chairs the Standing Committee of the presidential National Security Council, stressed the symbolic meaning of the fourth article of the joint statement issued at the end of the second session of the fourth round of talks on Sept. 19.

The fourth article requires the directly related parties to negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at an appropriate separate forum. The six parties agreed to explore ways and means for promoting security cooperation in Northeast Asia.

The minister also said his ``important proposal’’ to provide some 2 million kilowatts of electricity to North Korea was an inevitable decision, requesting understanding of the public on the proposal.

The proposal was aimed at persuading North Korea to agree to scrap its nuclear weapons programs at the six-party talks. The earlier project to build two light-water reactors under a 1994 deal is supposed to be dismantled if Pyongyang accepts Seoul’s proposal.

``Present Korean society seeks more protection of human rights, freedom of the press and economic affluence than ever before,’’ Chung said. ``We should make more efforts to improve Korean society as the present conditions have been achieved through countless sacrifices of our predecessors.’’

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