Ending six months of silence, North and South Korea said Thursday that they would resume high-level diplomatic discussions on how they might build a workable relationship.
The two longtime enemies, still technically fighting the 1950-53 war that concluded without a peace treaty, said they would sit down in Seoul Sept. 15-18 to address an agenda expected to include the linking of their railroads and reuniting some families separated by the conflict.
Because they haven’t gotten over the war, North and South Korea’s dealings are always emotionally charged and unpredictable, and there was no way to determine whether next week’s talks would lead to a new level of cooperation or fail.
After a landmark year of progress in 2000, culminating in the first visit to North Korea by a South Korean leader, the North abruptly broke off talks in March, apparently out of frustration with the decision by the new Bush administration to re-evaluate Washington’s relationship with Pyongyang.
The surprise agreement Thursday to restart stalled negotiations came after a sudden flurry of political activity, including a visit this week to the North by Chinese President Jiang Zemin and a South Korean political crisis brought on in part by frustration with the lack of progress in dealing with the North.
Although neither side spelled out what backroom dealings and calculations were responsible for the sudden progress, it seemed likely that pressure from Jiang played a role in North Korea’s decision to move forward.
The first overture came from the North on Sunday, the day before Jiang’s arrival, when the government said via Radio Pyongyang that it was ready to resume dialogue. South Korea replied Thursday with a proposed meeting, which North Korea immediately accepted.
“We hope the upcoming talks will produce good results respecting the spirit of the June 15 [2000] summit agreement and living up to the expectations of the whole nation,” the North said in a telegram to the South, referring to South Korean President Kim Dae Jung’s visit to the North.
Despite the overall tenuous state of their relations, North and South Korea have never before appeared so interested in talking to each other.
Under Kim Dae Jung, South Korea has used a “sunshine” policy of separating political and economic issues to find more ways to cooperate, and North Korea–under Kim Jong Il–has accepted, apparently because the failing society has run out of options.
Left without a benefactor since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the North’s reclusive and belligerent hard-line communist government has moved slowly but steadily toward engagement with the outside world, including extremely limited business dealings with the South. But it remains unpredictable and dangerous. North Korea keeps the world’s attention mainly by using political brinkmanship, including the threat of its ballistic missile program, to garner attention and extract aid.
China, along with the U.S., has been prodding North Korea for years to deal with the South, and Jiang wanted his trip to jumpstart the talks. But the North apparently didn’t want to appear dependent on China so it made its offer to the South a day before Jiang’s arrival.
“They can claim they made the decision on their own part and were not responding to Chinese pressure,” said Ralph Cossa, president of Pacific Forum CSIS, a Honolulu-based foreign policy research institute.
Cossa said the timing also appeared linked to a parliamentary no-confidence vote over the South Korean unification minister, who had allowed a group of South Koreans to visit the north.
Politicians were upset that the South Koreans had participated in a World War II memorial ceremony that appeared to glorify communism, but they were also frustrated that the “sunshine” policy was getting no results.
North Korea’s offer to talk, made the night before the no-confidence vote, seemed designed to meddle in South Korean politics, though it wasn’t clear what Pyongyang hoped to accomplish. The political dust-up in Seoul led to a Cabinet reshuffle Friday.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Bush administration is encouraged by next week’s proposed talks.
“That’s a very positive development,” Boucher said Thursday. “We think that inter-Korean dialogue is the key to peace and security on the Korean Peninsula.”
