hankyoreh

May 16.

Despite North Korea’s notification Friday warning that a second round of Kaesong (Gaeseong) meetings between North Korean and South Korean officials was on the verge of rupture, the South Korean government is refusing to change the tenor of its “principled response” based on hopes that North Korea will not actually close the Kaesong Industrial Complex down. Analysts point out, however, because of this attitude towards North Korea’s wave of attacks raising the idea of closing the Kaesong Industrial Complex South Korea now faces a situation in which the survival of the complex is difficult to guarantee.

A Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office in South Korea or Blue House) official said Sunday that if North Korea wishes to close down Kaesong, they would mobilize soldiers to close down the complex, but they have not done that.

Prior to this, a Unification Ministry official, too, said North Korea sees the need to maintain the complex and was not thinking about actually closing the complex. The official added that it would not be easy to abandon a complex that has been running smoothly for the last six years and lies within North Korea’s own territory.

The South Korean government’s response maintains the principle of not giving in unilaterally to North Korea, while keeping with its basic attitude of encouraging dialogue through working-level talks. A high-ranking Cheong Wa Dae official said South Korea proposed talks for Monday and was preparing for them. He said if Monday did not work out, then it would prepare to meet the next day, and if that did not work, the day after next, and so on. If North Korea counter proposes a date for new talks, the official indicated that South Korea plans to accept.

In terms of the agenda of the working level contacts, officials said that the South Korean government would adopt a more flexible posture than previously held. This will be evident as it seeks a separate negotiating channel to discuss the issue of the South Korean Hyundai Asan employee who is currently being detained by North Korea. A Cheong Wa Dae official said the Hyundai Asan employee issue was Seoul’s “No. 1” priority, but the issue requires a different approach.

Criticism that the hardline posture gave North Korea the justification to dissolve working-level contacts and to play its card of shutting down the Kaesong Industrial Complex can be heard even from within the government. A government official said there is a world of difference between having and not having inter-Korean contact, and in order to keep the contact momentum alive, South Korea needed to have moved in the direction of dealing with the Hyundai Asan employee on a separate track from the beginning, and adopted a posture of opening up a path for resolution with North Korea. The Unification Ministry had presented this option from the beginning at the working level, but the highest level of government, mindful of attacks by conservatives who held the opinion that the government was ignoring the safety of its citizens for the sake of dialogue, had not taken it.

Another official said the government’s attitude as it prepares for the second round of Kaesong meetings appears to be out of step with North Korea, much like it was during talks to discuss last July’s shooting death of a South Korean tourist in Mt. Kumgang. This is to say that rather than seek a plan that would have maintained contacts with North Korea and substantively guaranteed the safety of South Korean citizens, mindful of conservative opinion, the government placed importance on keeping up the image of pressuring North Korea with hardline arguments.

Many experts believe that North Korea has issued an ultimatum through the latest notification demanding South Korea change its North Korea policies or face the closure of the Kaesong complex, and accordingly, the government must now go beyond a working level response as a temporary expedient and fundamentally reconsider the tenor of its North Korea policies.

A Cheong Wa Dae official said that since this was negotiation time, it was best for the Unification Ministry to step forward. The official said one needed to consider what not only the two Koreas would do, but also what the U.S. and China would do. He added that when the decisive time came, the president would have to decide what to do, but he expressed doubt of the possibility that a new position at the presidential level would be articulated anytime soon. The official said the president could decide not to change his North Korea policy, because it is already fairly flexible and he could argue that it has already changed.

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