Saenuri Party candidate Rep. Park Geun-hye said on Monday she would push to establish representatives’ offices in Seoul and Pyongyang to normalize strained bilateral ties.

During a press conference on her diplomacy, security and unification policies, she promised a “flexible and balanced” approach in handling North Korea, expressing her willingness to meet its leader Kim Jong-un.

Park also stressed “comprehensive defense capabilities” to deter Pyongyang’s provocations through the long-standing alliance with the U.S. and other measures.

“Our North Korea policy should evolve. (I) will depart from a dichotomic approach taking either appeasement or a hard-line stance, and instead, push for a balanced North Korea policy,” she told reporters in her party headquarters in western Seoul.

Her announcement came a day after the Saenuri called on Pyongyang not to intervene in the election here. The North’s committee for Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland on Saturday called on “all strata in the South” not to allow the ruling party to take power again.

At the core of her policy featuring three principal goals of “durable peace, trustable diplomacy and happy unification” was what she has long reiterated ― a “peninsular trust-building process.”

To enhance bilateral communication and exchanges, Park promised to establish representative offices of the two Koreas in both capitals. “Various communication channels should remain open. Should it help enhance inter-Korean relations, I would meet the North Korean leader as well,” she said.

Park also outlined her plan for a step-by-step process toward ultimate political unification, which proceeds in the order of inter-Korean trust-building, the settlement of peninsular peace and then the forging of a unified economic community.

Other pledges to spur trust-building include offering humanitarian aid to the vulnerable in the North; regularizing reunions of separated families; making the inter-Korean industrial complex in Gaeseong, North Korea, more internationalized; and pushing for joint exploitation of underground resources.

However, efforts to bolster defense capabilities should be carried out along with the trust-building endeavors, Park said.

“We cannot make a new Korean Peninsula in a situation where the lives and safety of citizens are threatened. … (I) will strengthen deterrence that can neutralize the North’s nuclear and missile threats,” she said.

She pledged to establish a “control tower” to handle security and diplomatic issues more consistently and effectively, and ensure the process of retaking wartime operational control in December 2015 proceeds seamlessly.

Park also said that she would seek to resolve North Korea’s nuclear issues through a multi-faceted consultation mechanism including a strategic dialogue among Seoul, Washington and Beijing.

Some critics argue that her North Korea policy has elements that clash with each other, and lacks detailed action plans.

“Her policy has elements that are quite broad in terms, and lack details for them to be put into action. I believe she may find difficulty realizing them should she enter the Blue House,” said Yang Moo-jin, professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

“She also appears to say that she would support the North on the basis of progress on the denuclearization. But this is no different from the policy of President Lee Myung-bak.”

By Song Sang-ho  (sshluck@heraldcorp.com)