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On June 15, the 15th anniversary of the June 15th North-South Joint Declaration, North Korea issued a statement in which it said that the governments of North and South Korea can sit down for talks and negotiations and urged South Korea to take “real action.”

Since North Korea took the unusual step of issuing a “government statement,” a format that carries the highest degree of authority, there is hope that Pyongyang is expressing its willingness to engage in dialogue with Seoul.

Just after the release of that statement, the North Korean Red Cross Central Commitee said by fax that two South Korean detainees would be repatriated on Wednesday via Panmunjeom Peace Village.

But since North Korea is still placing preconditions on dialogue - asking South Korea to stop conducting joint military exercises with the US, to desist from slander of North Korea including the launch of propaganda balloons, and to revoke the May 24 Measures - it is unclear whether this will actually lead to the resumption of talks.

“If an atmosphere of trust and reconciliation is established between North and South Korea, there is no reason why the two sides cannot engage in dialogue and negotiations,” North Korea said on Monday in a “statement from the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).”

Emphasizing once again the importance of the June 15 and Oct. 4 declarations, the statement said, “If implementation of the joint statements between North and South Korea is unjustly suspended simply because there is a change of governments, there is no problem facing North and South Korea that can be resolved.”

“The South Korean government must not simply say that they respect the June 15 Joint Declaration and the Oct. 4 Statement. Rather, they must show that they respect them through real action.”

North Korea went on to specify what steps it wants the South to take: to have the Korean people resolve inter-Korean relations and the issue of unification without any international involvement, to stop pursuing unification through regime change, to discontinue joint military exercises with the US, to desist from provocative action such as slander and libel (including the launch of propaganda balloons), and to repeal any legal and institutional mechanisms that prevent contact, travel, exchange, and cooperation between North and South Korea.

This is only the second time that North Korea has expressed its position through an official government statement of this sort since Kim Jong-un took power. The first such statement was issued in July 2014 to announce that North Korea would be sending a cheering squad to the Asian Games in Incheon.

Another notable feature of the statement is its relatively respectful tone, which contrasts with the blunt denunciations that North Korea had been making until the beginning of this month. At one point, North Korea said, “there has never been a scoundrel like Park Geun-hye.”

“If North Korea’s position had been that it was unwilling to talk because the conditions were not right, now it seems to be calling for the right conditions to be put into place since it’s willing to talk. The ball of inter-Korean dialogue is in our court now,” said Chang Yong-seok, senior researcher at Seoul National University’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies.

In response to the North’s statement, the Ministry of Unification called on North Korea to come to the table for talks “without improper preconditions.”

The longstanding position of the South Korean government is that the US-ROK joint military exercises are held annually for defensive purposes. It has also effectively condoned the launch of propaganda balloon by private groups, claiming that this falls under the freedom of expression guaranteed in the constitution.

Finally, the government has indicated that it is willing to discuss revoking the May 24 Measures, sanctions barring inter-Korean trade and exchange put in place after the 2010 sinking of the Cheonan warship, once North Korea comes to the table.

By Kim Oi-hyun, staff reporter

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