While speaking to a gathering of Korean residents in Germany, President Roh Moo Hyun said that "in intra-Korean relations as well, we must say be bitterly frank when we have to and get red in the face when we have to." Meeting with the speaker of the lower house of Germany's federal parliament Roh drew attention by discussing a sensitive issue, saying he "hopes North Korea will go in a direction where it changes while maintaining its government like in the cases of China and Vietnam."
In response to his repeated criticisms of the North his staff at Cheong Wa Dae moved to put questions to rest by saying the president said such things in response to questions, and that there has been no change in the basic tone of North Korea policy. One can easily sense that he is displeased with the North. In Los Angeles last year he made an expression of "good faith" by supporting one of the North's claims, saying that its demands for security assurances are somewhat reasonable, and yet the North is not coming to the six-party talks and even channels of intra-Korean dialogue remain shut tight, the result, reportedly, being that Roh is very disappointed. His comments appear to be a strong demand for the North to take action.
However, his comments have the potential to cause misunderstanding first of all on behalf of North Korea and also within the international community. It is nothing new that North Korea has a weird attitude that is hard to understand by our standards, but one worries how the North will take it when the president wants to take it to task with direct criticism at a sensitive time. If by chance Pyongyang misinterprets what he said to be the same line as the hard-line US policy towards it and gets upset the situation will be hard to deal with. It could end up destroying the virtual "buffer zone" that has been set in place for the sake of peace on the Korean peninsula.
However difficult things are and how angry you become, intra-Korean relations must be pursued with patience and consistency. It will be very unfortunate if the strategy of pressuring the North to come to the six-party talks is misinterpreted as a move to encircle Pyongyang together with the US. Particularly between North and South there needs to be prudent judgment and each side needs to refrain from too seriously upsetting the other. It goes without saying that it is time the North, for its part, to stop wasting time and come to the six-party talks.
The Hankyoreh, 13 April 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] NK Might Misinterpret Roh's Comments |
