Unification supremo takes S.Korean premier post

SEOUL (Reuter): Unification Minister Lee Yung-dug, who has masterminded South Korea's thorny relations with the communist North since the start of the year, was named last Friday to the post of prime minister.

Lee replaces Lee Hoi-chang, whose resignation was accepted by President Kim Young-sam following a shock eruption of differences over prime ministerial power.

An academic, the new premier was president of Seoul's Myongji University and chairman of President Kim's public ethics committee before being appointed as unification minister in a cabinet reshuffle in December last year.

He has since been charged with South Korea's most sensitive portfolio -- maintaining contact with a bellicose North Korean government that is suspected of developing a nuclear arsenal under the secretive wraps of its civilian atomic program.

Lee earlier served as vice president of the South Korean Red Cross and chief delegate to inter-Korean Red Cross talks as well as serving as head of a national teachers' federation.

He is one of the few South Korean government leaders to have visited the communist North when he was chief delegate to inter- Korean Red Cross talks in Pyongyang in 1985.

Born in Kangso, a North Korean town, in March 1926 when the Korean peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule, Lee earned a doctorate in education in the United States in 1959 after gaining a first degree from the prestigious Seoul National University (SNU).

He worked as a SNU lecturer before gaining the post of unification minister.

Lee, a Christian who is married with a son and two daughters, has been one of Kim's closest allies in the drive to expunge corruption from the ranks of government.

His appointment must be legally approved by the National Assembly, South Korea's parliament.

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