(News Focus) S. Korea joins U.S. security drive despite North's warning

By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, May 26 (Yonhap) -- South Korea responded to North Korea's nuclear test by
joining a U.S.-led security campaign on Tuesday, a move expected to further raise
the stakes in deadlocked inter-Korean relations.

North Korea has repeatedly warned that Seoul's participation in the Proliferation
Security Initiative, a naval exercise whose primary targets include the communist
state, would be seen as a "declaration of war."
South Korean officials rushed to stem speculation that Seoul's decision to join
the PSI was in apparent retaliation against the North's nuclear test.
"The PSI is part of global efforts to curb the flow of weapons of mass
destruction," Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-ju explained. "Seoul's
participation does not specifically target North Korea nor was it decided in
consideration of current inter-Korean relations."
North Korean watchers are concerned that Pyongyang may use the decision as an
excuse for further provocations, including military action. Pyongyang warned on
March 30, as Seoul was mulling its participation in the proliferation initiative,
that South Korea "should never forget that Seoul is just 50 km away from the
Military Demarcation Line."
Seoul had been dragging its feet making a final decision on the issue, fearing an
expanded role in the U.S.-led drive could hamper efforts to free a South Korean
worker detained by the North in March on charges of criticizing its political
system.
South Korean businesses operating in North Korea's border town of Kaesong, where
the worker was detained, also complained that rising political tensions hampered
the future of a joint industrial park there.
Jang Yong-seok, an analyst with the Institute for Peace Affairs in Seoul, said
North Korea may retaliate by blocking South Korean border traffic to the joint
park. The North claims the South's participation in the PSI breaches the Korean
War armistice agreement, which bans any kind of blockade on the peninsula. PSI
participants are required to block, inspect and seize ships suspected of carrying
weapons of mass destruction and related materials.
North Korea has already shown that it is willing to risk the profitable joint
park to make diplomatic points. It banned South Korean traffic to the park
several times in March in protest over a joint military exercise involving U.S.
and South Korean forces.
"The North being a clear target of the PSI, our government's participation in it
is bound to immediately affect the Kaesong park and a few other remaining
inter-Korean projects," Jang said.
For South Koreans, the timing of the North's nuclear test was unexpected, coming
as the entire nation mourned the loss of a former president.
Hundreds of thousands of people were bidding their farewell to former President
Roh Moo-hyun when North Korea announced it conducted a nuclear test. Roh, driven
by humiliating bribery allegations involving his family and friends, took his
life on Saturday by leaping from a cliff above his rural residence some 450 km
southeast of Seoul.
Monday's test, which the North warned of months earlier and likely carried out
along a meticulously set timeline, plainly revealed how little South Korea
factors into North Korean policy implementation now centered around the United
States, Seoul analysts said.
"Given the deterioration in inter-Korean relations, the North did not need to
consider what the South is going through," Lee Bong-jo, former vice unification
minister who worked for the Roh administration, said.
"North Korea's goal is solely focused on the U.S. It has been making assessments
over how it can draw direct negotiations and how it can maximize benefits from
them (the U.S.), and the decision was to carry out the nuclear test on that
particular day," he said.
Just hours before the nuclear test, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il sent his
"profound condolences" to Roh's family, a move that came in the midst of a
political deadlock on the peninsula and raising faint hope that it could signify
a warming gesture.
Inter-Korean relations ground to a halt amid a tit-for-tat cycle of action and
reaction over the past year. Roh's successor, President Lee Myung-bak, ended a
decade of engagement policy that included unconditional economic aid to the
impoverished North and toughening up on its nuclear program. Pyongyang cut off
government-level dialogue in retaliation, scrapping inter-Korean accords and
attacking Lee's "confrontational" stance.
"In the South, people had some expectation there may be a breakthrough with the
North Korean leader's message, but the following events revealed what the North
aims for. It went ahead with the nuclear test. The South was not a major factor
to consider," Yoo Ho-yeol, a political science professor at Korea University,
said.
Hong Ihk-hyun, an analyst with the Korea Institute for International Economic
Policy in Seoul, said the North is not likely to warm up to Seoul as long as its
deadlock with Washington continues.
"The North is waging a diplomatic battle with the U.S., which is becoming larger
and tougher, and during that time, the South is a very minor issue," Hong said.
With the nuclear test and possibly more missile tests, North Korea is pressuring
the U.S. into discarding its hostile policy, he said. "Dialogue is not its
ultimate goal. The North is asking the U.S. to answer to its demands" to
normalize diplomatic relations and lift economic and military sanctions," he
said.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)