hankyoreh

North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland released a spokesperson’s statement on Oct. 4 vowing a “resolute and unhesitating response” if “the US and the puppet gang [the South Korean government] insist on ignoring our warnings and following the path of a North Korean invasion and provoking a nuclear war.” It was just one of several North Korean propaganda institutions that have been blasting Seoul with harsh invective over the past four days. It joins the Rodong Sinmun newspaper and the policy bureau spokesperson from the National Defense Commission, which made a personal attack on President Park Geun-hye on Oct. 4.

But Seoul has been firing off its own hard-line rhetoric. During an Oct. 7 meeting with Xi Jinping at the APEC Summit in Bali, Indonesia, Park urged the Chinese President to pressure Pyongyang into making the “right decision,” telling him she found it “truly dismaying that North Korea pledged to hold reunions of separated families and then cancelled them unilaterally three days beforehand, hurting family members who have waited a lifetime, more than 50 years, to see each other.”

No sooner did the policy bureau statement come out than the Ministry of Unification was calling it “irrational behavior without even a basic level of manners” and expressing “extreme dismay” about the “deplorable language used to criticize a head of state.” It was unusual to say the least to see this ministry, our window to the North, criticizing Pyongyang so directly. The signs suggest that the road to thawing the chill that the reunions’ cancellation has cast on inter-Korean relations will be rough indeed.

What all of this means is that less than a year into the Park administration, its “trust-building process” with North Korea has already hit a wall. Pyongyang obviously deserves to be criticized for its sudden postponement of the reunions. But it was naive to imagine that after agreeing to the reunions while under pressure to reopen the Kaesong Industrial Complex, it would go along without demanding anything in return. Like any other diplomatic negotiations, inter-Korean relations are shaped by give and take, and Seoul seems to have failed to consider just how tough a nut Pyongyang can be to crack. Some of the blame also goes to the “trust-building” framework. Somewhere along the way, this notion of using improved relations to build trust turned into a dogmatic insistence that preexisting trust must be a prerequisite for any dialogue.

Once the two sides had agreed to resume operations at the Kaesong complex, Seoul crowed about the success of “principled North Korea policy.” The current situation shows that progress in inter-Korean relations is not going to happen without North Korea’s cooperation. Unless we see concrete, practicable ideas for improving our relationship - including what we are willing to give at what stages - the “trust-building process” is likely to end up being little more than a slogan. We don’t need more bickering right now. We need something with substance that will satisfy both sides.

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