hankyoreh

in this photo from the Oct. 17 edition of the Rodong Sinmun newspaper. Again Kim was seen walking with a cane

By Choi Hyun-june, staff reporter

After North Korea published what was discussed during the meeting of military officers from North and South Korea that took place on Oct. 15, inter-Korean relations are facing a new challenge, and trouble is brewing for the second-round of high-level talks, which were arranged with difficulty. Nevertheless, compared to past experience, it does not appear that the framework for inter-Korean talks will be completely shattered.

There have been several instances in the past of the two sides playing “truth or dare,” with the North releasing the details of talks with the South and the South contradicting its claims. One good example was when North Korea published the details of secret meetings between North and South Korean officials in Beijing in June 2011.

At the time, North Korea’s state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) ran a report on secret meetings held in preparation for a summit meeting that had allegedly been taking place between North and South Korea since May 9. The detailed report described the conversation that had taken place about apologizing for the sinking of the Cheonan warship and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island and even revealed that South Korean officials had requested that the meetings be kept secret and handed over an envelope full of cash.

The recent publication of the details of the military meeting is similar in the sense that North Korea went public with the details of a meeting with the South after that meeting ended in failure. However, there is a difference as well. The previous time these details were published was the fourth year of Lee Myung-bak’s presidency. Talk about a summit had started in 2009 and continued for around two years.

When the two sides were unable to narrow their differences despite a long series of meetings, North Korea lost hope in President Lee, who was nearing the end of his term. Indeed, two days before North Korea published the details of the secret meetings, the North’s National Defence Commission released a statement in which it called Lee a “traitor” and said that it would not associate with him any longer. This was both an objection to the use of pictures of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il as target practice for South Korean soldiers and a declaration of the end of dialogue with the Lee Myung-bak administration.

In its recent report on the meeting of the military officers, North Korea used rather moderate language, referring to President Park Geun-hye as South Korea’s “power holder” and the South Korean government as the “South Korean authorities.”

In addition, North Korea did not cancel the second round of high-level talks, which are planned to take place soon. Instead, the North seemed determined to keep its options open, promising to “watch the future actions of the South Korean authorities.”

In addition, in the report on the meeting, North Korea focused more on justifying its own position than on slandering the South. Even as North Korea warned that the second round of high-level talks were in danger, it did not state that it would not engage in the talks.

In the sense that the publication of the military meeting does not constitute a rejection of inter-Korean relations per se, it is similar to the working-level meeting to reopen the Kaesong Complex that took place in July of last year. Immediately after the sixth working-level meeting, the North Korean delegation head went into the South Korean reporters’ room, distributing material to the press and describing in detail what had happened during the meeting.

This incident resulted from a disagreement that arose while the two sides were deciding what responsibilities to include in the agreement to prevent the Kaesong Complex from being shut down again. It seemed to indicate that all of the progress that had been made in the series of talks had been squandered, and many North Korea experts even predicted that the effort to normalize operations at the Kaesong Complex had failed. The Blue House said it would have to make a “grave decision,” and North Korea retorted that South Korea would bear responsibility for the consequences.

But in the end - about a month later, in mid-August - North and South Korea agreed to normalize operations at the Kaesong Complex. This shows that even if North and South have a disagreement and North Korea shows its strong disapproval by unilaterally making public what happened during a meeting, the two sides are able to overcome these difficulties when they need to.

Nevertheless, there appears to be a significant problem with the stance that the South Korean government has adopted during the course of these talks. During the skirmish in the West (Yellow) Sea on Oct. 7, which was what triggered the military talks, the South Korean navy demonstrated the possibility of overreaction. Even when North Korea made concrete suggestions to address this, South Korea remained passive, only reiterating its standard position.

The document released by North Korea after the meeting contains specific proposals for easing tensions in the West Sea, such as not crossing sensitive lines or entering sensitive waters, banning gunfire unless the other side engages in deliberate hostile action, and making the rules of engagement less hostile. But the South Korean government appeared not to give a response to these proposals in a meaningful way, instead dismissing them as attempts to neutralize the Northern Limit Line (NLL).

“For North Korea, the engagement in the West Sea on Oct. 7 seems to have been something it could not simply ignore, which is why it made proposals for preventing a reoccurrence. The South Korean officials seemed unprepared for this, and instead busied themselves in an attempt to avoid a discussion,” said Kim Dong-yeop, professor at Kyungnam University.

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