04/26/2011

Ahtisaari should be mandated to investigate Kumgang shooting

Within a note to the Deputy Head of the International Department of the Worker’s Party, the Regional Director of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation’ for Freedom’s office in Korea, Walter Klitz, reminded the DPRK’s policy makers of an earlier recommendation brought forward during one of his visit to Pyongyang last year. He had suggested approaching the former Finnish president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate to engage as an independent advocate of peace and reconciliation into the frozen inner-Korean dialogue on the issue of the Kumgang Tourist Region. After a 53 year old South-Korean tourist had been shot to death in 2008, all South Korean tourist activities in the North had been put on hold. If Mr. Ahtisaari could be won over to head an international team to independently investigate the Mount Kunmgan shooting incident, Walter Klitz argued, this might also open a chance to overcome the inner-Korean silence and lead to a new dialogue on other urgent affairs. Currently Martti Ahtisaari, together with former US President Jimmy Carter and a number of other elder statesmen, sojourns on a private mission to Pyongyang.