(EDITORIAL from the Korea Herald on Feb. 1)

dailies-editorials (2)



Double-faced

Few would dispute the need for dialogue between South and North Korea. As Winston
Churchill famously said, it is always better to "jaw-jaw" than to "war-war." His
remarks look all the more fitting, given the latest escalation of tension between
the two Koreas.

But South Korea does not rush out for talks with the North. It has good reason
not to. It has set new terms for dialogue, which it says must be met before
official inter-Korean talks start. Seoul says it will not engage in dialogue for
dialogue's sake.
North Korea either fails to take the shift in attitude seriously or ignores it.
Either way, it will not get what it aimed at when it proposed official talks on
several occasions. Top policymakers in the South believe that Pyongyang needs
dialogue more than Seoul.
A case in point is a proposal for talks on the resumption of South Korean tourist
trips to a resort on North Korea's east coast - Mount Geumgang. The Asia-Pacific
Peace Committee of the North proposed on Jan. 14 to start two-day talks on Jan.
26 on tourist visits, which the South suspended when a North Korean guard shot to
death a South Korean woman who strayed into an off-limits security area in July
2008.
Instead of accepting the proposal immediately, the South made a counterproposal
on Jan. 25 in the name of Minister of Unification Hyun In-taek to hold the talks
on Feb. 8. What is important about this new proposal is that it was addressed to
the head of the Unification Front Department of the Workers Party, the minister's
counterpart, Kim Yang-gon, who doubles as chairman of the Asia-Pacific Peace
Committee.
In the counterproposal, the South was sending a message to the North that it does
not regard the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee as a competent government agency to
discuss the precondition it set for resuming the tour program - guaranteeing the
security of South Korean visitors. It was demanding that the North be represented
by the party's department, not the committee, in the official talks. This demand
is legitimate, given that the committee is a self-professed nongovernmental peace
organization.
Half-heartedness for talks was witnessed again when the South virtually turned
down a proposal for additional working-level military talks on cross-border
passage to the Gaeseong industrial park in the North, customs clearance and
communications. The South said it would make a counterproposal at an appropriate
time.
Such reluctance reflects distrust of the North, which the South regards as being
double-faced. On one hand, the North proposes talks, aiming at securing food,
other aid and hard currency from the tourist program. On the other hand, it fuels
tension, threatening military action against the South.
Recently, the North threatened the South, warning that it would launch a "holy
retaliatory war," when a Seoul-based daily reported a South Korean contingency
plan for the North's potential implosion. It also warned of a "resolute military
action" when the South Korean defense minister said he did not rule out the
possibility of launching a preemptive strike if the North showed any signs of a
nuclear attack. Tension culminated when the North fired artillery rounds into the
ocean close to the Northern Limit Line, the de facto sea border off the west
coast, last week.
But a military threat will not bring what the North desperately needs - food and
other aid from the South. The destitute North will do well to try to find a
remedy to its economic woes in President Lee Myung-bak's proposal for a "grand
bargain" - massive economic aid in return for the dismantlement of its nuclear
weapons program. Lee says he is ready to meet Kim Jong-il anytime.
(END)

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