Diplomatic breakthrough for two Koreas unlikely after fresh barbs

By Kang Hyun-kyung

The stalemate over inter-Korean relations has shown signs of going from bad to worse as fresh diplomatic antagonisms, including the defection of nine North Koreans, surfaced this week.

This could tempt the North’s military hardliners to carry out yet another attack, North Korea watchers said.

“Recently, China warned North Korea of the consequences of its bellicose acts. We will see if the Chinese warning can work in controlling volatile North Korea,” Park Young-ho, a senior fellow of the Korea Institute for National Unification, said Thursday.

His remarks came amid deep concerns that the Stalinist state may engage in more provocations as time is not on their side.

Foreign ministers of South Korea and the United States will sit down next Friday in Washington to discuss ways to address North Korean issues.

The talks are taking place two months after Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan met his counterpart Hillary Clinton in Seoul when Clinton dropped by on her way back to Washington after wrapping up a Japan trip.

Asking not to be named because he was not authorized to talk to the media, a government official said North Korea is on the agenda for the Kim-Clinton talks.

Speaking at a National Assembly session earlier this week, Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin didn’t rule out the possibility of the North committing another aggressive act.

Kim said the North appears to be gearing up for another volatile act.

Weeks ago, the North disclosed secret contact between South and North Korean officials in early May to embarrass the Lee Myung-bak government. It also threatened to make public audio files of the conversations.

Since then, the situation facing the two Koreas has gotten worse as new challenges arose this week.

Analysts say the latest defection of nine North Koreans and the North Korean Human Rights bill will make it more difficult for the two Koreas to reach a diplomatic breakthrough.

Earlier this week, nine North Koreans aboard a small boat crossed the maritime border in the West Sea to defect to the South.

When the South Korean military spotted the boat crossing the maritime border near Udo close to the disputed waters off the Northern Limit Line and approached them, the North Koreans expressed their intention to defect.

A joint interrogation team consisting of the National Intelligence Service, the police and the military is now questioning them.

The defection came months after 31 North Korean fishermen accidentally drifted across the maritime border in the West Sea.

Of them, 27 were returned to the North, while the remaining four expressed their desire to staying in the South. North Korea reacted angrily to the South’s decision to allow them to remain.

Pyongyang’s hostile rhetoric in the previous case spurred speculation that it could lead to another stormy response to the defection of the nine North Koreans.

But North Korean watcher Park disagreed, noting the two cases are different.

“North Korea was outraged by the way the South handled the previous case because the 31 North Koreans had no intention of defecting to the South. Their crossing the maritime border was an accident,” he said.

“Therefore, the North had good reason to react angrily to the South at that time.”

But, Park continued to say, the nine North Koreans displayed an explicit intention to defect to the South in the latest case. The North may feel very displeased about it, but is not in a position to blame the South.

Meanwhile, efforts to see the North Korean Human Rights bill approved have drawn an irate reaction from the North.

Presidential aides have teamed up with ruling Grand National Party officials to push for the passage of the legislation through the parliament in June.

North Korea has released hostile rhetoric against the South. In a statement posted on the North Korean website Uriminzokkiri, it said, “the Lee Myung-bak faction” will pay a heavy price for its efforts to pass the bill.

The reaction came a day after the North’s state-run newspaper ran an editorial entitled “The provocation will end up with the worst-case scenario.”

It said, “If South Korea goes through with the passage of the bill, despite our strong warning against the move, inter-Korean relations will reach a point that is irreversible.”