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South Korean staffers at the joint liaison office depart for Kaesong from the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) office in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, on Mar. 25. (joint photo pool)
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Return of staffers was as sudden as their disappearance
North Korean staffers returned to their duties at the Kaesong joint inter-Korean liaison office on the morning of Mar. 25, three days after they were given “orders from their superiors” to withdraw on Mar. 22. “Some of the North Korean staffers reported to work at the joint liaison office at around 8:10 am today,” said a Ministry of Unification (MOU) senior official that afternoon. The North Korean staffers who returned to their duties included a liaison representative and around four to five working-level employees – amounting to around half the normal staff of roughly 10. In discussions between two sides’ liaison representatives at around 9:30 am that day, the North Korean side explained that the staffers had “come down today to perform their usual shift duties,” the same official said. The North Korean representatives also stressed that there had been “no change in our position that joint liaison office duties must be performed well in keeping with the aims of the inter-Korean joint statement,” the official reported. The swift order from North Korea to send the staffers back to work was not expected. Particularly noteworthy was the explanation that the employees returned to “perform their usual shift duties” – a turn of phrase that seemed to imply the offices’ North Korean staffers had not actually been unilaterally withdrawn on Mar. 22 on “orders from their superiors.” The establishment and operation of the joint office at Kaesong was a key term of the inter-Korean agreements in the Panmunjom Declaration from Apr. 27 of last year. For that reason, North Korea’s withdrawal of its staffers at the office carried potential repercussions that threatened to ripple into inter-Korean relations as a whole. Indeed, many experts saw the withdrawal on Mar. 22 as a case of the North provisionally deferring implementation of the Apr. 27 declaration’s terms – or abandoning its hopes for South Korean President Moon Jae-in to play the role of mediator or catalyst between North Korea and the US. This explains the importance of the North’s message in liaison representative discussions that morning that there had been “no change in our position that duties must be performed well in keeping with the aims of the inter-Korean joint statement.” In effect, Pyongyang expressed its discontentment with Seoul – which has been passive about pursuing inter-Korean economic cooperation projects due to UN and US sanctions – while ultimately sending a clear message that it does not intend to allow inter-Korean dialogue to get derailed. “The key takeaway is that they don’t want to ruin their relationship with the South,” said University of North Korean Studies professor Koo Kab-woo. “In reality, the North doesn’t have any options either if inter-Korean relations break down,” he noted. North Korea’s behavior since withdrawing its liaison office staff has been unusual enough that its actual aims remain difficult to fathom. Given the weight of the issue, its actions have been unprecedentedly “low-key.” It’s an unfamiliar situation with almost no parallels in past inter-Korean dialogue. For example, if the weekend is not included, the actual vacuum in operations at the liaison office in the three days between the North Korean staffers’ withdrawal and their return lasted for all of four to five hours on the afternoon of Friday, Mar. 22. Even after withdrawing the employees, the North Korean side designated staffers at the Central Special Zone Development Guidance General Bureau – which handles affairs related to the Kaesong Industrial Complex – as a “communication channel” with the South. It was staffers with the bureau who assisted with the necessary administration procedures for South Korean workers to cross the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) when returning South on the afternoon of Mar. 22 and when arriving in Kaesong again on Mar. 25. No clear reason given for why North withdrew from Kaesong Why did the North halt operations at the joint office, and why did it send its staffers back to work three days after that act of sabotage? Having given no explanation for the withdrawal on Mar. 22, it offered none for the return on Mar. 25 either. “The North has not mentioned any clear reason regarding the withdrawal and return, and we plan to clear up matters with them at a later date,” said an MOU senior official. The South Korean government has strenuously avoided reading significance into the North’s abrupt back-and-forth behavior. While nothing has yet been confirmed, the possibility of behind-the-scenes discussions having taken place during the weekend over the channel between National Intelligence Service (NIS) Director Suh Hoon and United Front Department Director Kim Yong-chol cannot be ruled out. Potential influence of Trump’s tweet “[US President Donald] Trump’s tweet looks to have had an influence on the North’s change of attitude,” said a senior official in foreign affairs and national security. Former Minister of Unification Jeong Se-hyun said, “I think President Trump’s message to the North [in his tweet] made North Korea decided not to take a ‘new path.’” “The North seems to have decided that it needed to get inter-Korean relations back to normal and return things to the way they were before the [liaison office] withdrawal,” he added. “This may have been their way of asking [President Moon] to play the role of mediator or catalyst.” According to this analysis, North Korea’s change in behavior was influenced by a Mar. 22 tweet by Trump, whose message about ordering the withdrawal of additional sanctions underscored his commitment to negotiations and helped halt a rapid slide in the situation on the Korean Peninsula in the wake of the North Korea-US summit in Hanoi. The question is what happens now. Kim Gwang-gil, an attorney with the law firm Jipyong who served for 10 years as head of the Kaesong complex’s legal affairs team, suggested the two sides now have “some room for a cooling-off period without provoking each other.” At the same time, Kim cautioned, “The North’s aims in seeking to pull out of the Kaesong joint liaison office haven’t yet gone away.” A senior official in the area of foreign affairs and national security predicted the situation “could change depending on what we do going forward.” “It’s still a difficult state of affairs,” the official added. By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer, and Noh Ji-won, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
