It is encouraging that Prime Minister Lee Hae Chan and North Korea's president of the Supreme People's Assembly Presidium Kim Yong Nam met in Jakarta on Saturday and agreed on the need to restart dialogue. Sadly it was a brief meeting using a short break at an international event in a distant land, but the timing is very significant. Private intra-Korean exchange continues, and yet issues such as the mass defection of North Koreans via Southeast Asia have mean formal government contact has been dead for some nine months. In addition the six-way talks about resolving the North Korean nuclear issue have been stuck for six months, and the North has been escalating the rhetoric regarding its possession of nuclear weapons as it demands the United States renounce its aggressive policies against it. It has been a harsh situation, one in which you never knew when confrontation would erupt.
It is too early to tell whether the meeting in Jakarta will lead to a full reopening of dialogue. What they at least agreed with specifically was that the talks about Japan's return of the Bukgwan Daecheop Bi, taken during the Imjin Waeran in invasions. That is not a particularly urgent issue between North and South, but you are at least able to say that the effort to create a mood for restarting intra-Korean dialogue has begun. There are many issues waiting for attention about which negotiations for must not be delayed, including economic exchange such as fertilizer and measures for reducing military tension.
We have not thought that closing most other channels of communication was a good idea while we have been demanding the North and the US engage in direct dialogue. The Participatory Government has been seeking a strategy of its own, suggesting the role of Northeast Asian "balancer" in order to maintain peace on the peninsula at a time when the situation in Northeast Asia is changing rapidly. This is a region where the interests of powerful nations collide, so if North and South are unable to open their hearts and exchange ideas about Korean survival, the turbulence on the Korean peninsula will not go away. As noted by Kim, this year marks the fifth anniversary of the June 15 Declaration, and restarting full dialogue at an early date would make that anniversary significant. It could also be the foundation for realizing the "national cooperation" that the North has stressed repeatedly.
The Hankyoreh, 25 April 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Restarting Dialogue With NK |
