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By Park Byung-soo, staff writer, Kwon Tae-ho, Washington correspondent

The Korean Peninsula is in a state of uncertainty with the abandonment of a Feb. 29 agreement between Washington and Pyongyang. The Feb. 29 agreement, signed in Beijing, had improved the chance of dialogue, which has since disappeared. The US cancelled promised food aid after North Korea went ahead with a rocket launch on Apr. 13, despite warnings from other countries. Pyongyang had agreed to halt all such launches under the terms of the deal.

This was in response to Pyongyang’s foreign ministry statement Tuesday evening declaring that it would “no longer be bound by the Feb. 29 Choson [North Korea]-US agreement, which the US broke with its overtly hostile action.”

In the statement, Pyongyang blamed the US for breaching the agreement, arguing that it “suspended the provision of food in accordance with the Choson-US agreement and abused the status of UN Security Council president to orchestrate a hostile action that infringes upon legitimate satellite launch rights.”

When the formal scuttling of the agreement appeared inevitable, Washington and Pyongyang both began pointing fingers. US State Department deputy spokesperson Mark Toner said in a briefing Tuesday that North Korea had made a commitment with the agreement, which served as the basis for Washington’s provision of food aid.

The current situation, with its increased likelihood of cold peninsular relations for the long term, is reminiscent of the period after North Korea’s 2009 rocket launch and nuclear test. After the six-party talks broke down in Dec. 2008 over the issue of testing and sampling at the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, North Korea conducted its launch and nuclear test a month apart in April and May of 2009. Its brinkmanship tactics were aimed at squeezing concessions from Washington by fomenting a sense of crisis, but they ended up ruling out any hopes of dialogue with the Barack Obama administration, which had come into office that January.

After that, relations between North Korea and the US went into a long period of hibernation.

“Cracks have emerged in China’s status as mediator between Pyongyang and Washington, with its agreement under international pressure to a UN Security Council (UNSC) president’s statement condemning North Korea, just as it did in 2009,” said a South Korean government official.

“It most likely won’t be able to build any momentum for mediating dialogue between North Korea and the US for the time being,” the official added.

North Korea‘s actions are key in determining how the situation unfolds from here. Most of the political will in Washington to reach out to Pyongyang for dialogue has evaporated. And with a presidential election coming up in November, there is little chance of the Obama administration risking domestic criticisms to pursue dialogue with North Korea.

Following a meeting Tuesday in Washington with US special representative for North Korean policy Glyn Davies, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs Lim Sung-nam was asked by journalists whether a decision had made to postpone or suspend food aid to North Korea.

“We should view it as a suspension,” Lim said, indicating that Washington is not attached to the idea of resuming dialogue.

The statement from North Korea’s foreign ministry was actually less strongly worded than in the past. In it, Pyongyang stated that it could not accept the UNSC president’s statement and that it plans to continue with its satellite launch efforts, but it did not refer to any additional actions such as retaliation or nuclear testing. It only warned that “we are now free from the Choson-US agreement and can take whatever necessary response measures we see fit, and whatever happens is the US’s responsibility.”

This stands in sharp contrast with the statement released after the Apr. 2009 UNSC president‘s statement. North Korea’s responded strongly at the time, calling the statement, “a declaration of war,” and demanding “an immediate apology for the infringement of autonomy”.

“Based solely on the content of the statement, it’s impossible to predict what North Korea will do going ahead,” a South Korean government official said.

“But we certainly do sense it being, I don’t know, a bit disheartened or disconcerted compared to before,” the official added.

Now that the Kim Jong-un regime has been officially launched with successive meetings of Workers’ Party of Korea representatives and the Supreme People’s Assembly on Apr. 11 and 13, some observers are venturing hopeful predictions about the possibility of a break from the past. Analysts said there is a good chance the decisions to launch the April 13 rocket and sign the Feb. 29 agreement were not made by Kim Jong-un. The launch was planned while Kim Jong-il was still alive, and the agreement was a reaffirmation of agreements reached with Washington just before his death in December.

“Given that North Korea views the previous leader’s final instructions as a key ideology for governance, no one could have undone decisions made by Kim Jong-il during his lifetime,” a government official said.

“Now that Kim Jong-un has officially launched his regime, he can be expected to start speaking in his own voice,” the official explained.

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