hankyoreh

By Kang Tae-ho, senior staff writer

The tense atmosphere on the Korean peninsula was evident in the stern reaction from the National Economic Cooperation Federation (NEEF), a North Korean cabinet organization, to the Unification Ministry saying on Feb. 4 that it planned to step up inspections on products brought into North Korea at the Kaesong Industrial Complex. With its remarks, the ministry was merely affirming that it would enforce the UN’s sanctions against North Korea. Indeed, one of its officials said on Feb. 7 that checking to see if the items included things banned by UN Security Council resolutions was a “no-brainer, something we’ve already been doing.”

But the reaction from Pyongyang was fierce.

“If anyone tampers with the industrial zone in even the slightest way, we will regard it as heinous sanctions against us and take stern measures in response, including withdrawing all preferential treatment for the Kaesong Industrial Complex and turning that region back into an area for our military,” a Feb. 6 statement from the NEEF declared.

A Ministry of Unification official criticized the “overreaction” from North Korea, saying there was “no intention of creating any barriers to the normal production of tenant businesses.”

Nearly all ties between Seoul and Pyongyang were severed with the May 24 measures taken by the South Korean government in 2010 in the wake of the ROKS Cheonan warship sinking, and North Korea carried out an artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island later than year. But neither side mentioned the possibility of closing down the Kaesong complex. Indeed, the recent statement included the qualifier “though we would like to keep the Kaesong Industrial Complex going to uphold the spirit of the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration of 2000.”

But the first step on the slippery slope that sent inter-Korean relations careering downhill was a remark about the complex that came about one month after Lee Myung-bak took office as South Korean president in 2008. Taking issue with a statement by Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong, Pyongyang responded on March 27 by kicking out 11 South Korean officials residing at the complex’s Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Office. The remarks in question were quite mild: Kim had said any expansion of the complex would be “difficult without a resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue.”

The complex was the site where the conflict over executing the terms of the October 4 Inter-Korean Summit Agreement of 2007 played out. And this conflict functioned as a vicious cycle that sent inter-Korean relations deeper into a downward spiral. Now, a confrontation over North Korea’s nuclear test could turn it once again into the focal point for a further unraveling of the two countries’ ties.

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