Was meeting intended for genuine talks, or a ploy to distract?
Two days before it test fired a slew of missiles, the North Korean military proposed contact with its counterpart in the South. Seoul did not immediately respond to the request, and after the test launch spurned the North’s proposal. At 2 p.m. on July 3, North Korea read a message over the inter-Korean hotline in which it proposed a meeting between military officials from both sides in Panmunjeom at 10 a.m. on July 7. The revelation has led to criticism of North Korea for being two-faced, on one hand proposing dialogue while on the other preparing for a large-scale missile test. The North’s proposal, critics say, was meant to be a smoke screen to render South Korean intelligence unable to surmise North Korean military activities.One Unification Ministry official rejected the notion that the North’s invitation was an attempt at deception, saying that "if it were a highly-developed trick, the North would not have proposed merely low-level contact." Officials at the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Unification have apparently come to the conclusion that the North wanted to discuss military "safety guarantees" relating to the giving of aid in the form of materials needed by light industries, a key issue for economic cooperation between the two Koreas. The North is desperately in need of raw materials. Seoul suspects the North Korean military was called upon by Pyongyang to engage in dialogue with its counterpart in the South, and, unable to refuse because of the high stakes of losing the raw materials aid, proposed a meeting so that it could be seen as going through the motions. However, Baek Seung-ju of the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis said the North’s intentions "must be seen as part of a planned series of actions." Knowing that firing missiles would cause extreme tension both on and around the Korean Peninsula, the North wanted an opportunity to explain what it was doing. During the meeting, it would have been able to justify firing the missiles and make itself look like it was trying to ease tensions. Baek Hak-sun of the Sejong Institute had a still different interpretation. "The missile launch was [meant] for the U.S. and Japan, to pressure them," he said. "Proposing talks was for the South’s benefit." The North’s actions caused renewed distrust of its intentions and had the effect of confounding South Korean intelligence interpretation. For the second time since May, when it suddenly announced the postponement of pre-agreed plans for an inter-Korean railway test, the North’s military has again put Seoul in an awkward diplomatic position. Following the failure to carry through with the railway tests, experts began to wonder if the North’s military was defying Kim Jong-il or whether the disagreement is within the ranks of the North Korean government. By the time the North proposed the military meeting with the South, it had already ordered ships out of northern areas of the East Sea in preparation for the test launch. South Korean intelligence officials, citing poor weather, had estimated there was only a 50-percent chance the launch would take place. When the North proposed the meeting, the South may have been convinced that no missiles were going to be fired. Either way, they were caught unaware.
