SEOUL, Sept. 26 (Yonhap) -- Two-thirds of South Koreans are discontented with the sitting Lee Myung-bak administration's hawkish policy line toward North Korea, a poll showed Wednesday.

   According to the poll of 1,200 people conducted by the Institute for Peace and Unification at Seoul National University, 65.7 percent expressed dissatisfaction over current government policies on the communist North.

   The latest ratio of discontented respondents is 6 percentage points higher than the rate shown in a similar poll conducted a year earlier.

   It is also 4 percentage points lower than the ratio in a 2007 survey conducted before the current administration took office.

   After Lee took office in 2008, the North launched two deadly attacks, sinking a South Korean Navy ship and shelling a border island, causing the South to cut off exchanges with the North.

   The poll indicated more than half of South Koreans support reunification of the divided Koreas with 57 percent of respondents saying rejoining the countries is "necessary." The remainder responded that unification is either unnecessary or unimportant.

   Sixty-nine percent of those polled also said it is possible the North may attack South Korea, the survey said, showing the local people's underlying fears over potential military actions by their communist neighbor.

   Increased cooperation and exchange are preferred for the government's inter-Korean policies, in comparison with raising pressure on the North, the poll showed, with 53.7 percent favoring a dovish policy line.

   pbr@yna.co.kr
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