Communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea are likely to have formed at least an economic union by 2020, the South's unification minister told Reuters on Wednesday.
Chung Dong-young also said North Korea would be ready to accept Seoul's offer of free electricity as a stop-gap until light-water atomic reactors were built after a deal was reached in six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programmes.
South Korea does not aim for rapid unification, fearful of the German-style cost of unexpectedly welding together different systems. South Korean ministers are generally cautious about pinning dates on any form of closer ties.
Yet when asked about a mooted joint North-South bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics, Chung said that was a good idea and there was likely to be much progress between now and then. "The vision of the Republic of Korea - my personal vision as a politician - is that by 2020 we will be a welfare state, and also at the same time, the South and the North will be able to communicate freely, that we will at least have developed into a joint economic union," he said.
Chung, who covered the November 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall as a television journalist, did not elaborate on what form an economic union between Asia's fourth-largest economy and one of the world's poorest countries might take. But he said the North appeared headed for an economic opening similar to China and Vietnam, which both retain communist rule. The North has already begun some piecemeal market reforms.
Noting the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum was meeting in the southern city of Pusan, Chung said leaders were likely to declare support for the six-party talks, which involve the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. It is likely to be an oral declaration, not a written statement.
"The significance of this, both historically and substantively, is that the leaders and the people of all the countries in the region, and not just the countries taking part in the six-party talks, will support peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and will be doing so right here," he said.
The 52-year-old former leader of President Roh Moo-hyun's Uri Party said the six-way talks were unlikely to resume this year after last week's session ended with little tangible progress. "What's clear is it will be held, the second phase of the talks will definitely take place," he said at his office in the central government compound near the presidential Blue House many South Koreans assume he aspires to work in. He declined to be drawn on his political ambitions, saying his focus for now was North-South reconciliation.