hankyoreh

President Park Geun-hye made some interesting remarks about North Korea during a New Year’s greeting ceremony at the Blue House on the afternoon of Jan. 3. “This is the first Blue Horse year in sixty years,” she said, referring to the year’s designation in the sexagenary cycle. “In such an important year, we need to build peace on the Korean Peninsula, where both anxiety and division have persisted so long, and allow the opening of an age of unification.” This came just a little while after the Ministry of Unification issued a response to North Korea’s own New Year’s address stating that Pyongyang had “made reference to improving inter-Korean relations, but one cannot help questioning their sincerity.” It’s difficult to ignore such vastly differing positions on the North coming from the President and the ministry in the space of just a few hours.

Park’s words were obviously on the abstract and fuzzy side. She did not, after all, talk about any concrete ways of “building peace” or “opening an age of unification.” Still, as long as she is sticking to a “Korean Peninsula trust-building approach” centered on using nominally unconditional humanitarian aid and greater exchange and cooperation to build that trust, it seems reasonable to read her remarks as emphasizing dialogue, interchange, and collaboration.

The ministry’s position seems to be the exact opposite. Spokesman Kim Ui-do questioned the credibility of North Korea’s call to improve ties. “North Korea also made calls last year for ‘abandoning hostile policies’ and ‘walking the path of reconciliation, unity, and reunification,’ but then it continued hurting inter-Korean relations with nuclear tests, military threats, the unilateral shutdown of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, and slander,” Kim said. The ministry’s position also conflicts with its own report in an analysis and assessment that was released just after North Korea’s 2014 address. That report noted that Pyongyang had “made reference to improving inter-Korean relations, but it is also continued issuing denunciations, requiring further attention to determine if it will change its approach.” Now, nothing actually changed in North Korea’s approach over those two days. If the ministry did change its position, then it’s admitting its own analytical incompetence. If it bowed to pressure from outside, then it is showing everyone all the problems that are plaguing its North Korea policy.

How we respond to changes in North Korea after the death of erstwhile second-in-command Jang Song-thaek is a crucial factor in the peninsula’s future. Moreover, history and reality have shown that South Korea’s say in peninsular matters never grows unless there are improvements in relations with the North. It’s very troubling, then, to see this kind of incoherence from the administration, where the President is saying one thing on North Korea and the ministry is saying something else.

Hopefully, Park will use her New Year’s press conference on Jan. 6 to give a clear statement on how she is taking North Korea‘s proposal for improved relations, and what kind of conditions and efforts are needed to build peace on the peninsula.

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