hankyoreh

By Kim Keun-sik, Professor of political science and diplomacy, Kyungnam University

During his Aug. 15 Liberation Day address this year, President Roh Moo-hyun said that forming an economic community would be the one of the key issues on the South’s agenda at the upcoming inter-Korean summit. The development of economic cooperation and the promotion of peace are connected because mutual economic dependence between North and South Korea will become the foundation for preventing war and reducing conflict. The functionalist approach of ultimately deterring war and guaranteeing peace by sharing mutual economic interests and joining together is very appropriate food for thought for states in conflict.

However, enacting and progressing the president’s economic community initiative necessitates advancing relations in the areas of politics and military affairs. Taking economic cooperation and social and cultural exchange to the next level and moving towards economic integration firm enough to be a community will be entirely impossible with the current “military guarantees,” because qualitative development in economic cooperation will be impossible without progress and confidence building in military matters. If proposals pertaining to an inter-Korean economic community put forth at the upcoming summit are to be made effective there will, in the end, have to be a certain degree of confidence established between the militaries of both sides, and key to that will be the Northern Limit Line.

[Translator’s note: “military guarantees” refer to low-level pledges North and South Korea have between their militaries aimed at preventing an outbreak of conflict.]

The NLL is not an international border or demarcation of territory. There are some who uphold an excessive nationalism that views defending the NLL as the same thing as defending the national territory, but that is merely a myth blocking serious efforts on the part of North and South to discuss an eventual peace regime. The South’s military has, so far, taken the position that discussing the NLL can only take place if the NLL is first recognized by Pyongyang. In talks between the military brass from both sides, the South’s position has been that actions taken to build confidence between the two militaries, as stipulated in the North-South Basic Agreement, and talks between defense ministers, are to be carried out on the premise that the North recognizes the NLL.

Well aware of this, I would like to propose a profoundly changed position, one that changes the order of things so that the South instead says, “we’ll discuss the NLL, so recognize it.” North and South Korea are already in agreement about the NLL since in the Basic Agreement and its accessory agreements they simultaneously recognized each other’s respective jurisdictions and agreed on the renegotiation of sea demarcations. Therefore, demanding that Pyongyang recognize the NLL on the premise that it can then be the subject of discussion would make productive negotiations with the North more than possible.

A more flexible approach towards the NLL on Seoul’s part is not only not in and of itself a retreat from its current position; it would also secure leverage in negotiations with Pyongyang through linkage to comprehensive military confidence-building measures in the course of future inter-Korean dialogue. With discussions on the NLL as the point of departure there could in parallel be talk about comprehensive measures for reducing tension on the West Sea. Together with this there could be discussion about exchanges of military officials, establishing a hotline, and early levels of confidence-building measures, such as informing each other about, and allowing observers for, each other’s war games. This would allow the South to gain substantial tension-reducing measures from the North.

A profoundly changed approach to the NLL on our part could, in turn, permit us to gain flexible concessions from the North about the fundamental issues we have with Pyongyang. The issue of Republic of Korea prisoners of war still held in the North since the war, and of South Korean citizens abducted from the South between the war and now, is at once an issue that our government must solve and a sensitive one for the North, one very hard for it to want to deal with. Also, it is time that we make solid demands and get results on things, such as interference on the part of the North in the South’s domestic affairs and the establishment of summit talks as a regular forum. Therefore the South should demand a profoundly changed approach from the North on the issue of South Korean POWs and abducted civilians by taking a profoundly changed approach to talking about the NLL, and by doing so win positive responses from the North on the other fundamental issues Seoul has with Pyongyang.

There absolutely must be a changed approach to discussions on the NLL, in order to take issues the North has with the South head on, to advance the economic community initiative wanted by the South, and to pull relations out of the current state of stagnation and renew the push to develop them to the next level.