[Editorial] North Korea refuses South Korean reporters to witness shutdown of nuclear test site

Members of the international press prepare to board their flight to North Korea at Beijing Capital International Airport on May 22. (Yonhap News)

North Korea has refused to accept the credentials of South Korean reporters who are supposed to cover the shutdown of the nuclear test site at Punggye Village, which is scheduled to take place from May 23 to 25. On May 21, the South Korean government once again attempted to provide the North with a list of South Korean reporters via the liaison office at Panmunjeom, but the North refused to accept it. The North did the same on May 18, without providing a clear reason for its refusal.

While the North has voiced a number of grievances with the US and South Korea in the weeks before its summit with the US, that is no reason to prevent coverage by the South Korean press. The North needs to allow South Korean reporters to cover the event along with reporters from other countries, just as it promised.

Several circumstances suggest that North Korea is going to move forward with the shutdown of the Punggye Village nuclear test site according to plan. Photos released by North Korean affairs website 38 North show that the North is preparing for the detonation of the site by building an observation tower. The North had said it would open the event to reporters not only from South Korea but also from China, Russia, the US and the UK, and reporters from the other countries invited by the North have already been notified to assemble at the North Korean embassy in Beijing by the morning of May 22.

The team of South Korean journalists (4 from the wire service News1 Korea, 4 from the broadcaster MBC) assigned to cover the shutdown of the North Korean nuclear test site at Punggye Village answer reporters’ questions at Gimpo International Airport on May 21 before leaving for Beijing. The South Korean government has repeatedly attempted to send a list of reporters to North Korea for confirmation, but the North has refused to offer a response. (Yonhap News)

For now, the South Korean reporters who are still without an invitation visited Beijing on May 21, where they intend to apply for a visa to North Korea at the North Korean embassy.

While it is fortunate that North Korea is moving ahead with the shutdown as planned, it is baffling why the North would be so uncooperative with the press in South Korea, which is the other party in the Panmunjeom Declaration. South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to carry out complete denuclearization in the Apr. 27 Panmunjeom Declaration. The shutdown of the nuclear test site is the event that North Korea has deliberately planned as the first step in that direction. Keeping the South Korean press away from that event dilutes the spirit of the Panmunjeom Declaration.

During North Korea’s negotiations toward denuclearization with South Korea and with the US, it is possible for harsh words to be exchanged and for the various sides to wrestle over a better outcome. But the North should not behave as if it is violating the promises made in the Panmunjeom Declaration, an agreement that the leaders of South and North Korea have finally managed to reach. Unilaterally delaying high-level inter-Korean talks shortly before they are scheduled to take place and creating ambiguity about event access promised to the South Korean press cannot be regarded as a desirable attitude toward negotiations.

If North Korea has a bone to pick or demands to make, it ought to bring those up and hammer them out at the negotiating table. That is the path that would be taken by a normal country. We hope that the North Korean government will take sincere measures so that the event at Punggye Village can be conducted in the presence of the South Korean press.

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