North Korea’s attempt to influence South Korea’s presidential election won’t work, President Lee Myung-bak said, as Pyongyang gears up for yet another long-range missile test in an apparent bid to sway the tight race for Seoul’s top office.

“North Korea has continued its campaigns to influence South Korea’s elections. The latest case in point is its attempts to interfere with the general elections in the South in April. The North has also been trying to overly interfere with the upcoming presidential election in the South,” Lee said in a statement prepared for an interview Thursday with Yonhap News and five foreign wire services.

“Such attempts by the North, however, only backfired and brought about results contrary to what it intended to happen. North Koreans must recognize the grim fact that their futile campaigns only aggravate the feelings of South Koreans toward the North,” he said.

On Saturday, North Korea said it will launch its Unha-3 rocket between Dec. 10 and 22 to put what it claims an earth observation satellite into orbit. But outside countries and experts believe that it is a disguised test of a long-range missile that may target the United States.

“But even if they test fire a missile, it will not have a big impact on the election,” he said in the interview with news agencies that included the AP, Kyodo, Xinhua, DPA and Itar-Tass.

“They may have a preferred candidate, but I believe there won’t be any impact on the outcome this time too.”

The upcoming election is largely a two-way race between the ruling Saenuri Party’s candidate, Park Geun-hye, and her main opposition Democratic United Party rival, Moon Jae-in. Moon is considered more pro-reconciliation with North Korea than Park.

Should North Korea opt for the path leading to genuine change, South Korea will join hands with the international community to provide assistance and collaborate to the best of its abilities for the sake of stability and progress of the North, Lee said. Lee also said South Korea, the United States and China “share a common understanding on the need for genuine changes in and the opening of North Korea,” and expressed hope that China’s new leader Xi Jinping “will make an active and affirmative contribution to helping bring about positive changes in North Korea.

Apparently urging Japan to resolve long-running grievances over its wartime past, Lee also discussed sovereignty and history spats, saying they can be overcome if ”a little more effort“ is made.

”I believe that if the three countries genuinely cooperate, it will be very helpful for maintaining peace in Northeast Asia and this will also be an important chance for the three countries to prosper economically and thus contribute to the global economy.

Relations between Seoul and Tokyo have plunged to a record low as Tokyo renewed its claims to South Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo and protested strongly after Lee made an unprecedented visit to the East Sea islets in August.

The two countries have also sparred over Seoul’s demand that Tokyo take steps to address the grievances of elderly Korean women forced into sexual enslavement for Japan’s World War II troops when the Korean Peninsula was a colony from 1910 to 1945.

Japan’s relations with China deteriorated seriously over a group of East China Sea islets.

“All three countries must be wishing that we will move in a direction of cooperation. If we are to do so, I believe we should resolve historical and other issues in a more active manner. That will be conducive to genuine cooperation. Such issues are not insurmountable if we make a little more efforts,” Lee said.

South Korea’s relations with China, meanwhile, are in one of their best shapes ever, Lee said, though the sides experienced tensions over how to deal with North Korea when the provocative regime sank a South Korean warship and shelled a border island in 2010.

“But the leaders of the two countries have since then closely communicated with each other and broadened the area of shared recognition regarding North Korea,” Lee said.

During the interview, Lee urged both industrialized and developing nations around the world to stop trying to shift the responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and make reduction commitments voluntarily.

Lee stressed that tackling climate change is the “biggest common goal” for all countries, regardless of differences in their values and wealth levels, pledging that South Korea will play a bridging role between developed and developing nations. 

(Yonhap News)