Seoul PM urges North Korea to end provocations

South Korean Prime Minister Chung Hong-won urged North Korea Tuesday to cease all provocations and respond to President Park Geun-hye's call for greater exchanges between the sides. Tension on the divided Korean Peninsula has risen significantly in recent weeks as North Korea test-fired two midrange rockets, threatened a "new form" of nuclear test and staged a live-fire drill near the western sea border. South Korea fired about 300 rounds of artillery shells into North Korean waters Monday after the North shot some 100 rounds into southern waters during its drill. "North Korea should immediately cease all the provocations it is committing and actively respond to the 'Dresden Declaration," Chung said as he presided over a Cabinet meeting. The prime minister was referring to a package of proposals President Park unveiled last week during a speech at the Dresden University of Technology in the former East German city of Dresden. In her speech, Park laid out a road map for how the two Koreas should work toward reunification, saying the South would first increase humanitarian aid projects for the impoverished North before the two sides build trust and engage in larger economic cooperation projects. "A unified Korea is a country without fear of war and nuclear weapons, (a country) that contributes to solving global issues and to the global economy, while at the same time becoming a truly 'new whole' that goes beyond unifying the territory and system to where people from both sides understand and mix with each other," Chung said. The prime minister instructed the unification ministry and other relevant ministries to draw up a detailed plan for the proposed vision and come up with ways to win the support of the international community where it is needed.