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The meeting room inside the Peace House in the Panmunjeom Joint Security Area

During the summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that is scheduled for Apr. 27, South Korean President Moon Jae-in reportedly intends to propose setting up and running a permanent deliberation and liaison office at Panmunjeom that would serve as an inter-Korean mission. Moon also reportedly means to propose establishing and operating inter-Korean joint committees to serve as permanent bodies for consultation in areas including politics, the military and the economy.

On Apr. 24, multiple sources who are familiar with the preparations that are being laid for the inter-Korean summit said that South Korea would be proposing a liaison office at Panmunjeom during the summit. While it is too early to be certain, the sources said, an agreement was possible.

Traditional style Korean chairs have been made especially for the inter-Korean summit. The chairs feature a small woodcut design with the shape of the Korean Peninsula. In the background is a picture of Mt. Kumgang in North Korea. (Blue House Photo Pool)

This proposal is apparently designed to take the summit as the perfect opportunity to make progress on instituting regular, ongoing and permanent dialogue between officials from South and North Korea, including Moon’s stated desire to set up regular summits. Given the reality that an agreement on large-scale economic cooperation projects is not possible during the summit because of tougher sanctions that the UN and other members of the international community have enacted in response to North Korea’s nuclear weapons tests and missile test launches, this proposal reflects a strategic decision to create the impetus for improving inter-Korean relations in areas not covered by the sanctions by setting up and strengthening a deliberative body between government officials.

The liaison office at Panmunjeom that Moon will propose seeks to restore and actualize the agreement for such an office (Chapter 1, Article 7, of the Inter-Korean Basic Agreement) that was reached during high-level inter-Korean talks in 1992, but ultimately proved to be little more than a direct phone line. At the same time, it constitutes an attempt to expand the functions and the status of the Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Consultation Office (currently the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Consultation Office) established inside the Kaesong Complex in 2005 at which officials from both sides worked together and deliberated inside a single building.

While the function of the current Panmunjeom liaison offices, which are installed in Freedom House on the South Korean side of the zone and the Tongilgak (Unification Building) on the North Korean side, is limited to operating a direct phone line, the envisioned liaison office would be a permanent joint space and system for deliberation and contact that would essentially serve as an inter-Korean mission.

“Ideally speaking, we would like to establish reciprocal liaison offices [missions] in Seoul and Pyongyang, but that plan is not immediately feasible given the current state of inter-Korean relations. It’s fair to say that we’re pushing for a liaison office in Panmunjeom as a rudimentary form of permanent dialogue between the two governments,” said a well-informed source who asked to remain anonymous.

Traditional style Korean chairs have been made especially for the inter-Korean summit. The chairs feature a small woodcut design with the shape of the Korean Peninsula. In the background is a picture of Mt. Kumgang in North Korea. (Blue House Photo Pool)

The Panmunjeom liaison office that Moon will propose should be understood not in terms of the direct phone line that is currently maintained as the Panmunjeom communication channel, but rather as an expanded version of the Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Consultation Office, which was installed and operated at the Kaesong Industrial Complex between 2005 and 2010. Permanently assigned to the first floor of this office were about 15 South Koreans from the Ministry of Unification, economic agencies and the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) and a dozen or so North Koreans from the Korean Economic Cooperation Federation and other bodies, and these representatives served as an outlet for deliberations and communication about economic cooperation.

This is the only example in the seventy years since the division of Korea that officials from South and North Korea have worked together in the same building. This office was shut down by North Korea in response to the “May 24 Measures,” a raft of sanctions against North Korea adopted by the administration of former president Lee Myung-bak after the sinking of the Cheonan naval vessel in 2010.

By Lee Je-hoon, staff reporter

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