hankyoreh

For all the various conflicts between North and South Korea, things are happening that could offer some opportunities for improving ties. Hopefully, governments on both sides will take advantage and help to forge a new relationship.

The upcoming visit by Lee Hee-ho, widow of former president Kim Dae-jung, will be a good test of the governments’ commitment to making dialogue happen. In a conversation on Nov. 21, North Korean officials and a South Korean delegation agreed to Lee traveling to Pyongyang overland and paying visits to two daycare centers and children’s homes.

If Lee’s visit does happen, there is also a very good chance she will meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. That could end up paving the way for the two sides to have dialogue at a higher level. Governments in both Seoul and Pyongyang need to do their utmost to cooperate on making Lee’s visit a success. No agreement was reached on the date, but there’s no need to focus too much on the political situation. It‘s just better that it happen within the year, and certainly no later than early 2015.

The test run for the Rajin-Hasan Project, which is finally taking place after long preparations, is also significant as the start of three-way cooperation between North and South Korea and Russia. Some 45,000 tons of bituminous coal mined in Siberia - valued at about US$4 million - will be brought by rail through Primorsky Krai and Hasan before arriving on Nov. 24 at North Korea’s Rajin Harbor, where it will be transferred to a Chinese-registered boat for shipment to Pohang in South Korea by the evening of Nov. 29. The project is being carried out by a North Korean-Russian joint venture called Rason Kontrans, while the South Korean government has made plans to buy about half Russia’s shares in the company. It’s a new framework for economic cooperation, one where all three parties can benefit. Seoul has also said the project will be an “exception” to the so-called “May 24 measures”, sanctions imposed in 2010 in the wake of the ROKS Cheonan sinking - more proof that those measures are already looking unrealistic.

At the moment, Seoul and Pyongyang appear stuck in a rut. First their planned high-level meeting was canceled over propaganda leaflets scattered in North Korea, and now governments on both sides are facing off over the North Korean human rights issue. Both also staged large-scale military exercises ahead of the fourth anniversary of the Yeonpyeong Island shelling on Nov. 23. No progress is being made in any of the efforts to resume the six-party talks to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue. Unless some kind of turnaround happens quickly, this stalemate on the Korean Peninsula could set in for the long term. It’s a situation that has to change soon, and that’s what makes efforts to improve inter-Korean ties so crucial.

North Korea has been putting a lot of work recently into its ties with Russia. Some are even predicting the Kim Jong-un regime could have a summit with Moscow before it has one with Beijing. But the country that is truly capable of helping North Korea for the long haul is not Russia or China - it‘s South Korea. Pyongyang needs to realize there’s no substitute for good relations with the South.

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