Experts say two Koreas may exercise caution, restraint to maintain dialogue mood
The inter-Korean ministerial talks upcoming are expected to help spur Seoul’s “peninsular trust-building” initiative, which remained dormant amid North Korea’s recent saber-rattling.
Experts said both sides might exercise caution not to derail trust-building efforts as Seoul pursues enduring peace while Pyongyang seeks to restore ties with Beijing and revive lucrative inter-Korean projects such as the industrial park in Gaeseong and tourism in Mount Geumgang.
But tricky bilateral issues would not be readily settled through one high-level gathering ― a reason why both should exert restraint not to bite off more than they can chew and lose a rare chance to mend fences with each other, they noted.
At the truce village of Panmunjeom Sunday, the two Koreas held what Seoul officials described as “administrative, technical” working-level talks to discuss the agenda, venue and date of the ministerial-level meeting, and the size of their delegations.
The first working-level talks since February 2011 were held a day after presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping clarified their positions against the North’s nuclear armament during their first summit in California.
“It is hard to address all pending issues once and for all through this gathering. Both sides would seek to settle them step by step, from a broader, more comprehensive perspective, and follow-up sessions would also continue after the ministers’ meeting,” said Cho Bong-hyun, a senior researcher at the Industrial Bank of Korea.
During the upcoming talks, both sides are expected to refrain from delving into the denuclearization issue as Pyongyang, which proclaimed itself as nuclear-armed in its Constitution last year, might not abruptly change its position, and Seoul emphasizing too much on denuclearization could dampen the mood for dialogue.
But from Seoul’s perspective, it could face a backlash should it not make any mention of the nuclear issue given that conservatives in the South argue atop the agenda should be ensuring security by urging the North to renounce its nuclear ambitions.
Some observers said Seoul could reiterate its stance against the North’s nuclear program during the high-level talks and urge it to return to the long-stalled multilateral aid-for-denuclearization talks.
Another major agenda item is the resumption of the industrial park in Gaeseong. It was suspended as Pyongyang barred entry of personnel and cargo from South Korea on April 3 and kept its 53,000 workers, employed by 123 South Korean firms, from going to work on April 9.
Seoul is expected to demand that Pyongyang make a legally binding commitment to ensure it would not repeat such a unilateral suspension of the park. The North, in return, could demand that Seoul raise workers’ wages and expand the complex from which it raked in more than $90 million a year.
To reopen the tours to the Geumgang resort off the North’s east coast, Seoul is likely to demand concrete, effective measures to ensure the safety of tourists. The tour program was halted after a North Korean solider shot dead a South Korean tourist who strayed into an off-limits zone around the resort in July 2008.
Apart from the safety issue, Seoul might also have to ensure that bilateral agreements over the tour program would be reinstated.
The agreements have been invalidated since 2011 when Pyongyang unilaterally terminated the 50-year exclusive tourism rights of Seoul’s Hyundai Asan and enacted a special international tourism law to induce foreign investment into the program.
Observers largely remain positive over the prospect of the reunions of separated families ― an issue that has so far been relatively easily settled. The last reunions were held between October and November 2010 at Mount Geumgang.
For Seoul, such humanitarian issues are crucial to building a basic level of trust with Pyongyang. Under its peninsular trust-building process, it seeks to build trust first on relatively easily agreeable issues and gradually expand areas of cooperation including security.
But concern for Seoul is that Pyongyang could repeat the same tactic of launching provocations, seeking dialogue and getting economic assistance. Park has long stressed she would break such a pattern.
Huh Moon-young, a senior fellow at the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification, said the North could be insincere when they agreed to the inter-Korean talks ahead of the U.S.-China summit. But he stressed Pyongyang was not in a position to manipulate the situation to its own benefits for now.
“Should the North come to talks with the South without sincerity, the regime would face tough challenges in the future, and could also face its demise,” he said.
He stressed, in particular, an increasingly disadvantageous situation for North Korea in which Beijing has been getting closer to Seoul amid the reclusive state’s provocative moves.
“Amid deteriorating economic travails and bad relations with the outside world, the regime’s legitimacy could be challenged and its system to control people could also weaken,” he said.
“If Pyongyang severed ties with the South, continued to develop weapons of mass destruction, Beijing would no longer support them and Chinese strategists’ argument that the peninsula should be unified under South Korea’s initiative would further spread.”
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
