hankyoreh

Having stood back and watched what policy changes there were going to be after South Korea’s change of government, on Thursday North Korea referred critically to the South’s “conservative ruling elements.” It was a simple reaction to the fact the South’s representative to the United Nations criticized the North for its human rights record while before the Security Council, but it suggests that inter-Korean relations are not going to be easy going. Pyongyang is also angry about the “Key Resolve” U.S.-Korea joint military exercises that ended on Friday.

Pyongyang’s attitude towards human rights continues to be out of touch with most of the countries in the global community. “The human rights issue is a fabrication by the Americans and their followers,” said the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland in a statement on Thursday. North Korea will only see its discord with the international community grow if it does not change its attitude. While there are indeed some who want to use human rights as a tool for enacting regime change, just as Pyongyang claims, the North is not going to find the answer by altogether denying that it’s an issue. More and more nations are seeking ways to bring real improvements in the human rights of regular North Koreans. For Pyongyang, the best approach would be to cooperate with those nations to gradually resolve the issue.

The South, in the meantime, needs to take the lead in creating conditions that gently help the North to accept talk of human rights. On the one hand, it needs to act in a manner of good faith and work to create a framework for an international dialogue on human rights within which the North can discuss the issue, and, at the same time, it needs to work hard to persuade Pyongyang to make realistic decisions. It must not be anxious about scoring short-term achievements. It should assume a consistent attitude that is in tune with universal standards, finding an effective approach that allows for persistent implementation, instead of just increasing the rhetoric.

More urgent for Seoul than an immediate round of dialogue about North Korean human rights is coming up with a profoundly changed North Korea policy, since everything that has to do with the North, including the nuclear and human rights issues, ends up changing depending on where inter-Korean relations are and where the South stands in the relationship. The new administration in Seoul will only be restricting its own options on everything about the Korean Peninsula if it neglects inter-Korean relations out of an effort to mainly do things differently from the previous one. Stronger U.S.-Korea relations can be no substitute for progress in inter-Korean relations.

Relations with Pyongyang are in a period of transition. Since it is the change of administration in Seoul that is the single biggest variable, what happens with inter-Korean relations depends on Seoul’s attitude. It should go without saying that the first step in a profoundly changed North Korea policy for the new administration would be making it clear that it intends to carry out the June 15 Joint Declaration and the October 4 Summit Declaration. Only by doing so can Seoul have more to say about what happens and will it be easier to resolve the North Korean human rights issue.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]