hankyoreh

Sept. 27

By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer

On Jan. 9, the South Korean government gave a positive interpretation of the CPRF’s message, declaring it to be not a rejection of the reunions but rather a delay. But the government remains opposed to resuming tourism to Mt. Keumgang, which is effectively the condition that the North has placed on holding divided family reunions.

“North Korea’s telephone message rejected the working-level meeting that we proposed holding on Jan. 10 to prepare for the divided family reunions,” said Kim Ui-do, spokesperson for the Unification Ministry. At the same time, Kim said, “We think that the North is not saying it will not participate in the reunions, but rather that it wants to delay them.” In support of this interpretation, Kim noted that the North did not explicitly state that it rejected the proposal to hold the reunions, instead saying that it could sit down with the South at an appropriate time.

However, the South Korean government is placed in an awkward position by the fact that North Korea basically said that resuming tours to Mt. Keumgang is a condition for holding reunions for the divided families. In regard to North Korea’s suggestive statement that it could meet with the South “if the South is willing to discuss our proposals as well,” even Kim agreed that this was probably a reference to the issue of resuming tours to Mt. Keumgang.

The problem is that the South Korean government has little intention of acceding to North Korea’s request to resume tourism to Mt. Keumgang. When the South Korean government was working toward holding divided family reunions in October and Sept. 2013, it delayed the date of talks about tourism to Mt. Keumgang that North Korea had requested on three occasions. The North responded to this by indefinitely delaying the divided family reunions.

In other words, the general view is that it is unlikely that the divided family reunions will occur as long as the South Korean government refuses to accept North Korea’s request to resume tourism to Mt. Keumgang. But as of yet, the South Korean government’s position remains the same. This was made perfectly clear in the regular briefing on Oct. 8 by Unification Ministry assistant spokesperson Park Su-jin. “Tourism to Mt. Keumgang and the reunions of divided families are separate issues,” Park said. “The government‘s stance of dealing with these separately remains unchanged.”

It does not appear likely that the South Korean government will jump immediately into talks about resuming tourism to Mt. Keumgang as North Korea requested in order to bring about the reunions of divided families. Instead, the government is pinning its hopes on the fact that North Korea did not explicitly reject its proposal to hold reunions for divided families and that the North said it would work to improve inter-Korean relations in the future.

“Since North Korea has delayed the reunions for now for reasons including South Korean military exercises, the issue of tourism to Mt. Keumgang, and the time of year, it appears that we can discuss the issue again in the spring,” said another official on condition of anonymity.

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