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On Sept. 26, the Korea Coast Guard conducts a search operation for the remains and personal effects of a South Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries official who was killed by North Korean military on Sept. 22. (provided by the Korea Coast Guard)

Following the fatal shooting of a Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) official by the North Korean military after his disappearance near Yeonpyeong Island, South and North Korean authorities are working hard to find common ground in an investigation to allow for the swift retrieval of the official’s remains without letting the situation deteriorate further. But potential risk factors threaten to worsen inter-Korean relations, including heated public opinion in the South and the North’s mention of issues concerning the “military demarcation line in the West Sea.”

On the afternoon of Sept. 27, South Korean President Moon Jae-in presided over an emergency meeting of national security-related Cabinet ministers, where he made the decision to request a “joint investigation to swiftly determine the facts.” North Korea’s response to this is seen as likely to have a major impact on developments with the current situation, and with inter-Korean relations in general. Some analysts are predicting authorities on both sides could enjoy a wider range of options if either of them discovers the official’s remains in the near future.

Early the same morning, North Korea published a Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) report in which it announced plans to “organize a search operation” along its West Sea coast and to consider “ways of handing over any tide-brought corpse to the south side conventionally in case we find it during the operation.” With its inclusion of specific details, the response marks a step forward from its first official statement in the incident’s wake which took the form of a telephone notification on Sept. 25 by the Workers’ Party of Korea United Front Department (UFD). It also read as an “initial response” to an open request in the media from the Blue House National Security Council on Sept. 26 to conduct an “additional investigation.”

The KCNA “report” that day in connection with the remains’ retrieval did not make any direct mention of the NSC’s request. The possibility remains open for the North to respond in some form to the South’s request for additional investigation, depending on how the situation unfolds. The UFD’s prior use of expressions such as “investigation findings on the incident as reported to our leadership to date” and “accounts from some members of the military” hinted that the findings were not final, which means the possibility of North Korea notifying the South of additional findings cannot be ruled out.

The South and North have differed considerably in their accounts of the incident. Some of the most significant departures concern whether the remains were destroyed (with the South contending they were “covered with oil and burned for 40 minutes” and the North insisting that the body was “washed away after the shooting” and that “only the flotation device was burned”), who gave the order to shoot (with the South claiming it was an order from the naval commander and the North attributing the decision to the captain of the vessel in question), and whether the official expressed intentions of defecting (with the South relating “accounts that he was defecting” and the North claiming that the adviser “defied policing orders and appeared to be attempting to flee”).

This explains why the South Korean government issued a message the same day expressing “hope that the facts will be brought to light in an open manner, regardless of the respective investigation findings announced by the South and North.” The administration also made an open call to the North for each side to conduct “a full-scale search in its territorial waters” and for the “restoration and reoperation of the military communication hotline for the sake of communication, discussions, and information exchanges.”

The measures decided upon at the meeting presided over by Moon that day included searches by South and North Korea in their respective territorial waters, the restoration and reoperation of the military communication hotline, and a joint investigation based on discussions between the two sides. Notably, the administration merely referred to a “joint investigation” rather than a “joint on-site investigation.” Its message appeared to suggest that if “communication, discussions, and information exchanges” proceed smoothly over a restored military hotline, even a situation where each side searches its own waters would be viewed as constituting a “joint investigation.” This approach suggests the Blue House took painstaking efforts to tailor the message to the National Assembly and South Korean public’s expectations while also making it more palatable to the North.

On the day of the incident’s initial announcement on Sept. 24, Seoul officially demanded four measures from Pyongyang: an explanation, an apology, punishment of those responsible, and measures to prevent similar incidents from happening again. But with differences between the two sides unbridged even after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s statement that he was “very sorry” and the UFD’s promise to prevent future incidents, Seoul’s demands have progressed from a request for an “additional investigation” to one for a “joint investigation.”

One factor that appears to have played in part in Seoul not emphasizing the joint investigation in the first place appears to have been the lack of any precedents of inter-Korean joint investigations in connection with this sort of unforeseen incident. After the fatal shooting of South Korean tourist Park Wang-ja at Mt. Kumsang in July 2008, North Korea rejected the South’s request for a “joint on-site investigation by South and North Korean authorities.” In the wake of the ROKS Cheonan sinking in March 2010, the Lee Myung-bak administration declined a proposal from the North to “send a National Defense Commission review team to conduct a joint investigation.”

Based on this history, many observers have said the likelihood of Pyongyang abruptly accepting the “joint investigation” proposal is slim. But with Seoul’s proposal emphasizing “communication, discussions, and information exchanges” without any reference to an “on-site investigation” -- and with Kim Jong-un taking center stage in an unprecedented response from Pyongyang -- some are predicting that the forging of a “new precedent” may not be completely out of the question.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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