(EDITORIAL from the Korea Herald on Aug. 18)

Accords in Pyongyang

Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun returned to Seoul yesterday after meeting
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Sunday. She waited for five days in Pyongyang
while Kim was touring in the North's east coast city of Hamheung and its
vicinity.

The outcome was quite substantial - Kim "accepted all requests of
Chairwoman Hyun" as the North's official Central News Agency described it.
The first item in the five-point agreement between the Hyundai Group and the
Choson Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, which controls the North's businesses with
the South, mentioned an early reopening of the Mount Geumgang tours. The tours to
the scenic mountains were suspended by the Seoul authorities in July 2008 after
North Korean guards shot and killed a South Korean woman who strayed into an
off-limits area. Reopening the tours should be a South Korean government
decision, not the North's or Hyundai's.
But with the North's new offer of opening a route to the highest Biro-bong Peak
and Kim Jong-il's "special arrangements to guarantee full conveniences and safety
of tourism," there is strong possibility that Seoul will now allow resumption of
the tours which began in 1998. At the same time, North Korea will lift
restrictions on South Koreans' entry into and stay in the Gaeseong Industrial
Complex north of the border, without any condition but "under the spirit of the
Oct. 4, 2007 South-North Joint Declaration." Tours to the city of Gaeseong will
also be reopened.
The accords included further expanding the Gaeseong industrial projects in
accordance with the normalization of ground traffic across the border. North
Korea announced the restrictions on the Gaeseong complex late last year. It
demanded a sharp increase in the wages for the North Korean workers and rent for
South Korean firms in April this year. The Kim-Hyun agreement could either mean
Pyongyang's stronger pressure for increased payments or more flexibility in
negotiations.
Officials in Seoul do not openly admit it, but there is a possibility that Hyun
might have carried a message from South Korean authorities on her visit to
Pyongyang at the invitation of Kim Yang-gon, the top official in charge of South
Korean affairs as chairman of the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee and head of the
ruling Workers Party's United Front Department. North Koreans released Hyun's
employee at the Gaeseong complex who had been detained for slandering the North's
system, but Hyun was forced to delay her departure from Pyongyang day after day
as Kim Jong-il did not return to the capital from his provincial tour.
Kim may have delayed seeing Hyun until after President Lee made his Aug. 15
Liberation Day address. President Lee expressed a strong wish to improve ties
with the North through bilateral talks but reconfirmed his policy of linking the
North's denuclearization with economic aid and stopped short of making any direct
mention of the Mount Geumgang and Gaeseong projects, or rice and fertilizer
shipments to the North. The agreement with Hyun was the North's first reaction to
the presidential national day address and a positive one at that.
The developments in August augur well for overall inter-Korean relations,
although Seoul should always be prepared for surprise shifts of policy and
attitude in the North. Admirable is the patience of Hyun, who took the helm of
the Hyundai Group, the sole South Korean firm engaged in inter-Korean projects,
following the suicide of her husband six years ago. Kim must be deeply impressed
by the perseverance of the South Korean businesswoman, from whom he must also
have seen the power of the free capitalist economy.
(END)