hankyoreh

North Korea’s Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland (Jopyeongtong) says it cannot guarantee the safety of South Korean commercial passenger planes in its airspace over the East Sea because of the “Key Resolve” South Korea-U.S. joint military exercise. South Korean passenger airlines quickly changed their routes to circumvent the North’s airspace. Inter-Korean relations have continued to worsen as of late, and this latest development is a whole new phase of deterioration.

The North’s threat to civilian aircraft goes against international norms and humanitarian principles. It also negates a memorandum of understanding signed by North and South Korea in 1997 that has guaranteed the safety of passengers, flight crew, and cargo while passing through Northern airspace over the East Sea. If the North’s recent statement is carried out, inter-Korean relations will turn for the irreversible worse and the possibility of improved relations with the United States, something the North wants, will decrease. The North should withdraw the threat, which is not helping it in any way.

The statement is closely related to the realities of inter-Korean relations. It is an extension of the Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland’s statement of late January, in which it said all inter-Korean military agreements were no longer valid, in that it ups the ante as a response to what it sees as Seoul’s policy of ignoring Pyongyang. You can see how this is the case in the way the threat targets “Southern civilian aircraft during the period of the military exercises.” While it does not look like the statement is directly related to the test firing of a long-range missile the North says is a satellite, it is not unthinkable that the North will fire a short-range missile into the East Sea during the joint military exercises going on in the South.

It is somewhat understandable that the North would be sensitive about Key Resolve, since even though the exercise’s stated purpose is to prepare for emergency situations on the Korean Peninsula, some 26,000 American troops are participating, the most ever for joint military exercises with South Korea, a nuclear propelled aircraft carrier is coming to town, and it is going to last from March 9 to March 20, twice as long as usual. It would be better not to have these exercises if they exacerbate tensions on the peninsula because of their strong military focus. Pressuring the North militarily is not a good way to arrive at peace and it cannot take the place of good inter-Korean relations.

The South Korean government is just repeating that is “managing the situation in a stable manner,” this while just letting relations get worse. It seems to be thinking that all’s well since there haven’t been any serious clashes. A hostile relationship, one reminiscent of the Cold War era, is taking shape in this atmosphere. Before things fall apart even more, the South Korean government needs to take a look back at how things came to this and find a way to turn the situation around. It is wrong for it to be spending all its energy on placing all responsibility with Pyongyang.

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