(EDITORIAL from the Korea Herald on Jan. 18)

Threat of war

On Thursday, Pyongyang proposed talks on resuming South Korean tourist visits to
Mount Geumgang on North Korea's East Coast. The next day, it took two conflicting

actions, baffling South Korean authorities.
On Friday, Pyongyang sent a message, accepting a longstanding South Korean
proposal to send 10,000 tons of corn to impoverished North Koreans. But Pyongyang
threatened on the same day to launch a "retaliatory holy war" against the South
for what it called Seoul's plot to overthrow the North.
Few would think Pyongyang is dead-serious about starting a war. More plausible is
a theory that it is a face-saving and/or bluffing prop for the North, which must
have been humiliated when it did an about-face on declining the corn-aid offer.
The North turned a cold shoulder when President Lee Myung-bak's administration
made the aid offer last October. It apparently regarded it as too small when
compared with the annual shipments of 400,000 tons of rice and 300,000 tons of
fertilizer by the previous administrations.
The North needs a face-saving device for yet another action it needs to take -
asking Seoul to lift a ban it slapped on tourist visits when a North Korean guard
shot to death a South Korean woman who strayed into an off-limit security area
adjacent to the Mount Geumgang resort in 2008.
While offering no additional security guarantees for South Korean visitors, as
demanded by Seoul, Pyongyang has patiently been waiting for the South in vain to
make the first move in resuming tourist visits - an important source of hard
currency for the North.
In another development, a daily has recently reported Seoul's alleged contingency
plan for a potential North Korean implosion. Pyongyang, regarding it as an
overthrow attempt, is now threatening to retaliate. Seoul will do well to take
time before deciding how to respond to the threat of war.
(END)

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