hankyoreh

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Regarding official inter-Korean talks, which stopped in July last year due to the North’s test-launch of a Daepodong 2 intermediate-range missile, the South Korean government has decided the two Koreas will seek to narrow their differences through ministerial-level meetings.

The South and the North held a working-level discussion in Gaeseong (Kaesong), North Korea on February 15, two days after an agreement was reached at the six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, and the two sides agreed to resume the 20th round of ministerial-level talks from February 27.

The problem remains as to how Pyongyang and Seoul will solve issues that have been mired in uncooperativity for the past seven months.

It is not so difficult for either side to take the first stage of steps to recover inter-Korean relations. The South should provide badly-needed aid to the North, such as rice and fertilizer, while the North should take proactive measures to resolve the problem of families separated after the 1950-53 Korean War, an issue that has an enormous impact on public opinion in the South. Seoul expects quick resumption of the separated family reunions, which have been suspended since the 14th round in June last year. Seoul hopes for a swift return to a project to build a center to host such reunions at the North’s Mt. Geumgang resort, a plan that has been stalled since last July.

But observers expect the next steps to restore inter-Korean relations will not be as easy, as the relationship has been in disarray in some respects even before July’s missile test. The South had been pushing to conduct test runs on rail lines linking the two countries, but the North canceled the tests just a day before their May 25 slated execution.

The South places primary importance on the resolution of this issue in order to move inter-Korean relations forward. But the North has been focused on realizing the aid portion of the agreement forged at the 12th meeting of the South-North Economic Cooperation Promotion Committee in June last year. Under the agreement, the South would provide the North with light industrial and natural resources development cooperation, as well as raw materials aid worth US$80 million. This industrial aid is inexorably linked to the railway issue.

Kim Chun-shik, who was head of the inter-Korean exchange and cooperation bureau of the Ministry of Unification when the industrial cooperation deal was struck, said at that time, "Unless the test runs of the rail links take place, the agreement on light industries won’t take effect." In order for the test runs to happen, the North’s military needs to guarantee safe passage of the trains, something it has refused to do.

However, if this problem were to be solved, inter-Korean relations would enter a stage of full-fledged cooperation, including on military matters. It is possible to make such an seemingly quixotic prediction due to the fact that the agreement reached on February 13 at the six-party talks forecasts the rapid development of the North-U.S. relationship, something that seemed impossible mere months ago.

The two Koreas are expected to discuss the problem of building military trust at upcoming general-level military talks, and are expected to negotiate soon on economic exchange issues, such as expanding the joint Korean Gaeseong industrial complex.

A high-ranking official of the Unification Ministry predicted that, "since the six nations agreed that conciliatory measures should be taken before April 13, the future direction of the North Korea nuclear issue and the South Korean domestic political situation will have a significant effect on inter-Korean relations during the first half of this year."

South Korea’s December presidential election also could be affected by overall changes in the relationship between the North and the U.S., as well as between the two Koreas.

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