hankyoreh

May 19. (by Kim Seong-gwang

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been under constant pressure to play a significant role in improving inter-Korean relations before completing his term at the end of next year. After North Korea abruptly revoked permission for Ban’s visit to the Kaesong Industrial Complex on May 20, the day before he was supposed to arrive, it appears likely that inter-Korean relations will remain will remain in their current poor state for some time to come.

The prevailing view among analysts is that North Korea’s sudden cancelation of Ban’s visit was a response to comments made the previous day, when Ban criticized North Korea’s submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and called for reforms and opening.

Describing North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions, Ban said, “I believe it would be better for North Korea to have close exchanges with the international community, to open up, and to focus on its living conditions and economic development.”

These comments were criticized in a statement from the spokesperson of the policy bureau for North Korea’s National Defense Committee that was released on the afternoon of May 20. The statement denounced the UN Security Council, which it described as “a body that acts in accordance with the peremptory and despotic will of the US, a body that has forsaken fairness and balance and abandoned the principles of respect for national sovereignty and noninterference in domestic affairs, forgetting its own mission and the duties spelled out in its charter, which guarantee world peace and security.”

“The statement, which North Korea released just a few hours after announcing its decision to cancel Ban’s visit, contains the reason for that cancelation,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

Others suggest the possibility that the cancelation could have been triggered by a dispute between opposing forces inside North Korea.

“Given its human rights resolutions and sanctions against North Korea, the UN is no friend as far as the North is concerned. With increasing friction and discord between political factions in North Korea, it appears that the hardliners sprang into action and that Kim Jong-un sided with them,” said Chang Yong-seok, senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University.

The abrupt cancelation of Ban’s visit to North Korea - which many had hoped would mark a turning point for relations between South and North Korea - is expected to instead bring an even greater chill to their relations.

North Korea is once again closing doors even on private-sector exchange. On May 14 and again on May 18, the South Korean preparatory committee for a joint national ceremony marking the 15th anniversary of the announcement of the June 15th North-South Joint Declaration contacted North Korea’s preparatory committee to propose a meeting, but as of May 20, the North had not responded.

Lee Hee-ho, widow of former president Kim Dae-jung (in office from 1998-2003) and chair of the Kim Dae-jung Peace Center, had been planning to visit North Korea in May, but her trip has been postponed.

“We have not heard from North Korea yet. It looks like they are waiting things out because of the strain in inter-Korean relations,” said Kim Seong-jae, director of the Kim Dae-jung Peace Center.

Nor is there any solution in sight for the disagreement between North and South Korea about the question of raising wages for North Korean workers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex. The gap between the two sides widened even further when the South Korean government asked tenant companies to deposit their wages with the Kaesong management committee starting in April, which North Korea angrily decried as “infringement of its sovereignty.”

A group of company chairs from the Corporate Association of Gaeseong Industrial Complex (CAGIC) are planning to write a letter of guarantee and propose holding talks between North and South Korean authorities when they visit the complex once again on May 22. But with North Korea canceling Ban’s visit, there are growing concerns that it may make a more hard-line response.

Since becoming UN Secretary-General in 2007, Ban has repeatedly indicated that he would consider visiting North Korea when the time was right.

In 2009 and 2012, Ban said that he was prepared to visit Pyongyang in person to discuss any issues with the North Korean leaders in order to promote inter-Korean dialogue, exchange, and cooperation. As a secretary-general from a divided country, Ban has indicated at every opportunity that he would like to be remembered for helping to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Ban has also continued to maintain a relationship with North Korea, sending a note of condolence in the name of secretary general upon the death of former leader Kim Jong-il in 2011.

Reportedly, Ban has continued to sound out the possibility of a visit to North Korea through the so-called “New York channel,” which refers to communication between the secretary-general’s office and the North Korean delegation to the UN.

Over the past few months, Ban had been particularly eager to visit the Kaesong Complex around the time of his attendance at the World Education Forum, which was held in Songdo, Incheon. After repeated communication, he received the green light for his visit from North Korea on the morning of May 19, but this was retracted just a day later.

Despite this, Ban is still reportedly considering a separate visit to Pyongyang. “While pushing to arrange a trip to North Korea, Ban was even willing to visit Pyongyang if he had the chance,” a South Korean government official said on May 20.

By Kim Oi-hyun and Kim Ji-hoon, staff reporters

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