hankyoreh

A view of Kaepung County

After the South Korean government under President Moon Jae-in decided to approve a visit to the North by the owners of tenant companies at the Kaesong Industrial Complex and to donate US$8 million to international organizations running humanitarian aid programs for North Korea on May 17, the next question is what North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will decide to do. It remains to be seen whether Moon’s overture, which had been delayed because of cooperation between South Korea and the US, will break through North Korea’s apathy and help restart dialogue.

South Korean government officials appear to be watching closely for how North Korea responds to the approval granted to 193 business owners of companies at the Kaesong Complex to visit the North. Since inter-Korean and North Korea-US relations have been at a standstill since the North Korea-US summit in Hanoi concluded without an agreement, the North Korean response could function as a weathervane for the present state of inter-Korean relations. On May 18, an official at the Unification Ministry said that related deliberations were continuing but admitted that there had been no additional talks with the North since the government announced its decision on May 17.

North Korea has reason enough to allow the visit by the Kaesong Industrial Complex business owners to go ahead. During his New Year’s speech this year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he was willing to reopen the complex without any preconditions or compensation. Even after the breakdown of talks at the Hanoi summit, North Korean media outlets have argued that the complex should be reopened. The North could regard the visit by the business owners as a positive factor, a preliminary step toward the potential reopening of the complex.

In the end, the key question would appear to be that of timing. North Korea has traditionally framed inter-Korean relations as being subordinate to its relations with the US. In other words, for North Korea to be willing to engage in dialogue with the South, it would have to either see indications of some kind of breakthrough in its deadlock with the US or make the strategic decision to return to dialogue with the US.

At the moment, North Korea-US relations are still enshrouded by fog. “There still doesn’t seem to be any particular progress in North Korea-US dialogue. The US is still sending the North overtures about resuming dialogue, and the North is still declining to make a response,” said Cho Yoon-je, South Korean ambassador to the US, during a meeting with foreign correspondents in Washington, DC, on May 17.

“No agreement was reached [in the second North Korea-US summit] because [the US] stubbornly demanded that denuclearization come first, trying to force North Korea’s unilateral nuclear disarmament. North Korea’s position is that negotiations will only be possible when the US gives up its arrogant approach to dialogue, its assumption that only its demands should be met,” said the Choson Sinbo, the official organ of the pro-North Korean General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, known as Chongryon, on May 18.

May 17th marked the 12th consecutive week, since Feb. 22, where no meeting was held between the South and North Korean directors of the Inter-Korean Liaison Office in Kaesong. The hiatus in these meetings appears to be related to the standoff in North Korea-US relations.

“For now, [North Korea] is likely to hold to its aggressive and inflexible tendency to link its relations with the US and with its relations with South Korea. Right now we need to keep sending the message that we want to create a separate inter-Korean space,” said Hong Min, director of the North Korea research office at the Korea Institute for National Unification.

Barring any major changes, the US$8 million worth of humanitarian aid to the North promised by South Korea is likely to be transmitted to the North by way of the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Aid that’s directly provided by Seoul is vulnerable to adverse judgments about the current situation, such as when the North refused to accept 50,000 tons of corn aid in 2008. But considering that the North is suffering a drought on top of a food crisis, it’s unlikely to turn down aid disbursed by international organizations.

Contact between South and North Korea isn’t required for these two organizations to provide aid to the North. But since Seoul has also left open the possibility of giving the North more humanitarian food aid in addition to the US$8 million donation, it’s likely to try to use that as an opportunity to open up dialogue with the North.

By Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter

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