hankyoreh

It is inexcusable that North Korea has again, beginning Friday, prohibited Southerners from travel to and from the Gaeseong (Kaesong) Industrial Complex. If arbitrary decisions like this continue it will cast doubt on the complex’s future. Southern companies that have invested there are already being hurt by this.

This move on the part of the North directly violates the “Agreement on the Entrance to and Sojourn at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and Mount Geumgang (Kumgang) Tourism Zone” that exists between North and South Korea. It also violates the North’s own Gaeseong Industrial Zone Law. It also hurts the spirit of inter-Korean economic cooperation and hurts South Korean public opinion. When the North blocked free passage to and from Gaeseong on March 9, it said it was doing so because of the “Key Resolve” joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises. Not liking the war games does not justify attacking the Gaeseong Industrial Complex project. What other country is going to trust North Korea enough to invest there if this model of inter-Korean economic cooperation fails?

What North Korea needs to do is clear. For starters, it has to make sure Southerners and their goods can freely travel between Gaeseong and the South. Then it needs to convince the South and the whole world that nothing like this is ever going to happen again. Even if it allows travel to resume, companies in the complex are going to remain ill at ease. Pyongyang has a basic responsibility to create conditions in which Southerners can relax and go about their work.

The Lee Myung-bak administration needs to take effective action to quickly bring the situation to an end. It should not be too easygoing because of its unrealistic optimism and it should not make matters worse by overreacting. It also needs to completely reevaluate its North Korea policy. The reasons behind how things have come to this lie with how relations have continued to worsen since the start of the Lee administration, and because of the fundamental limits to what the administration can do by just “managing” the developments as they happen. The Key Resolve exercises will end on March 20, but if there continues to be a lack of trust between the two sides you never know when something like this could happen again. The Lee administration needs to give some serious thought as to why the North is reacting so sensitively to this year’s joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises.

The Gaeseong Industrial Complex enterprise has already suffered a lot of damage. It is of no help to either North or South to have it be the focus of so much negative news coverage. The North and South urgently need to make the right decision and engage each other in dialogue.

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