SEOUL, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- South Korea's pointman on North Korea Tuesday called for an inter-Korean summit to seek ways to end the nuclear crisis.
Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok also defended Seoul's policy of engaging North Korea as the way to promote peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.
"There are certain factions that say the (Seoul) government is to blame for the North Korean nuclear test that took place," he told a parliamentary committee on unification, foreign affairs and trade.
"But I believe an inter-Korean summit is a very useful means for dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons and (improving) North-South relations," Lee said.
North and South Korea held their first summit talks in 2000, and produced landmark agreements on cross-border cooperation and exchanges.
But the cross-border reconciliatory mood has been overshadowed by the North's missile and nuclear tests this year.
Lee, who has been under fire since the North's nuclear test earlier this month, is set to step down. He is the key architect of the South's reconciliation policy toward North Korea.
