The nominee to become South Korea's unification minister said Wednesday he will push for "substantive dialogue" with North Korea by upgrading the Korean Peninsula Trust-Building Process, a signature policy of the Park Geun-hye administration.

Speaking at his confirmation hearing, Hong Yong-pyo said sending a special envoy to Pyongyang can be an option if needed.

"(I) will explore various methods to invigorate dialogue and discuss major pending issues," he said. "A special envoy can be considered as one of many ways."

The outgoing unification minister, Ryoo Kihl-jae, recently asked Park to dispatch him to the North as a special envoy.

Hong indirectly confirmed Ryoo's request but said he is not aware of related details.

Last month, the president chose Hong, her secretary for unification affairs, to replace Ryoo, amid a drawn-out stalemate in inter-Korean ties.

Hong, who used to be a professor, is known to have played a pivotal role in crafting the Park government's North Korea policy.

If given a chance to lead the unification ministry, in charge of Seoul's policy on Pyongyang, Hong said, he would upgrade the Korean Peninsula Trust-Building Process aimed at laying the groundwork for reunification.

This year, he noted, Koreans have high hopes for reduced tensions on the peninsula as they celebrate the 70th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan's colonial rule.

"I think we can open the path of cooperation between the South and the North if we get North Korea policy evolved in consideration of internal and external security conditions," he said. "To that end, (I) will push for South-North dialogue that can resolve the problem in a substantive manner."

He said the two Koreas may restart formal contact in the coming months.

"I think it would be hard to expect a momentum during the (joint) military training (between South Korea and the United States," he said. "Given previous cases, however, I think there will be several opportunities after the end of the drills (in April)."

As to a package of bilateral sanctions on Pyongyang, known as the May 24th Measure, he stressed that the communist neighbor should first take a responsible step to address the issue.

He pointed out that the North has not yet apologized for the 2010 torpedo attack on a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors.

He said the Park administration is seeking to bring the North to the international community as a responsible member, not trying to isolate it.

On the North's protest at the cross-border spread of anti-Pyongyang leaflets, the nominee reiterated the government's stance that it has no legal ground to curb such a campaign by activists here, which falls under freedom of speech.

"But we are trying to persuade them to make a wise choice as the leaflet scattering can put residents in border areas under security threats and economic trouble," he said.

Opposition lawmakers, meanwhile, took issue with Hong's controversial re-use of his own academic papers and alleged real estate tax evasion.

He admitted that some parts of his papers were duplicated without the proper citing of sources.

He also said he did not pay appropriate gift taxes, by mistake, in apartment transactions with his parents, and falsely reported his home address in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

"I think there are things that I feel ashamed of," he said.

Born in 1964, Hong studied political science at Seoul's Yonsei University. He earned a doctorate in international relations from the University of Oxford. He worked as a professor at Hanyang University in Seoul. (Yonhap)