hankyoreh

delegation heads Ministry of Unification Exchange and Cooperation bureau chief Suh Ho

By Gil Yun-hyung, staff reporter

During negotiations that lasted from July 6 into late in the early morning of July 7, North and South Korea agreed to allow South Korean businessmen to enter the Kaesong Industrial Complex to inspect the equipment there and to bring back finished products. While this can be seen as the first step toward reopening Kaesong, there is much work left to do before the complex is fully normalized, making it difficult to be optimistic about the future. In the end, it appears that this problem will depend on how committed North and South are to Kaesong, and whether they can accept each other’s positions.

According to the agreement reached at this past weekend‘s working-level meeting between officials from Seoul and Pyongyang, businessmen from the South Korean companies operating at the complex will visit the North on July 10. The North and South Korean governments also made plans to hold more talks at Kaesong on the same day to discuss the normalization of the complex. Access to Kaesong is set to resume 98 days after North Korea unilaterally prohibited entrance on April 3.

In the four-clause agreement that North and South Korea reached late at night on July 7 - after a marathon session of negotiations that lasted 16 hours the North promised to allow South Korean workers and their vehicles to enter Kaesong to inspect the equipment and bring back finished products and raw materials. It also said it would allow communication with those workers and guaranteed their return and their personal safety. Furthermore, the agreement makes it possible for South Korean companies to bring back equipment and original and accessory materials.

At the supplementary negotiations between South and North that are scheduled for July 10, the South Korean government is expected to ask North Korea for specific measures that can prevent it from unilaterally shutting down operations at the complex again. The government has adopted the firm stance that normalization of Kaesong will not merely be a return to the pre-April 3 situation, but must also include the creation of some kind of system to prevent this sort of shutdown from happening again in the future.

In a statement released on May 28, the South Korean Ministry of Unification emphatically stated, “some system based on international standards must be put into place so that operations at the complex cannot be shut down at the whim of North Korea.” Additionally, the government also asked the North during the working-level meetings on July 6 and 7 to express that it takes responsibility for the loss to South Korean companies incurred by its unilateral measures and to issue a clear guarantee that it will prevent similar incidents from reoccurring.

However, North Korea reportedly did not make any comments about what the cause of the incident was or who was responsible, reports say. Instead, North Korean negotiators indicated that they wanted to focus the negotiations on practical and technical issues for helping the companies take measures to prepare for the monsoon season and for getting Kaesong running again as soon as possible. While the South Korean government is trying to focus the talks on identifying the cause of this incident and improving the system, the North seems to be making a furtive attempt to dodge the issue.

It appears that North Korea is adopting this attitude because it would not be easy to avoid criticism that it had violated the 2002 Kaesong Industrial Zone act and related enforcement decrees that North Korea passed based on the June 15 Joint Declaration when it prevented South Korean workers from entering the complex on April 3 because of a “an insult to the supreme dignity.”

The North Korean Act stipulates that North Korea must protect the freedom of economic activity of the companies at Kaesong (Article 3), the assets of investors (Article 7), and the personal safety of South Korean workers (Article 8). It also provides measures for resolving any differences of opinion that might arise between North and South regarding the operation of the complex (Article 46).

Ultimately, the question of whether the problem can be solved depends on whether the South Korean government can create appropriate measures for preventing a reoccurrence of this situation while finding a compromise that accepts North Korea’s position to some extent.

The Blue House offered a standard response on July 7, saying that it was “significant” that discussions had been held and that North and South authorities had reached a basic level of agreement toward constructive normalization of Kaesong.

However, it is very likely that the South Korean government will ask for a clear guarantee in a document form that would be recognizable on an international level, as is also indicated by the emphasis that South Korean President Park Geun-hye has placed on several occasions on “global standards” in relation to Kaesong.

“Success at the negotiations on July 10 will depend on whether South Korea can get some degree of expression of regret and measures for preventing reoccurrence while not upsetting the North Koreans‘ pride,” said Cho Bong-hyeon, a researcher at the Industrial Bank of Korea’s Economic Research Institute.

However, since the South Korean government is maintaining a hard-lined stance on the issue, it is difficult to be optimistic about the results of the July 10 talks. If the talks on July 10 run into difficulties, it may take longer than expected to get to the cabinet-level inter-Korean talks to discuss issues such as tourism at Mt. Keumgang, the reunions of the separated families, and the expansion and internationalization of Kaesong.

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