Did N. Korea want meeting in the first place?

By Kim Tae-gyu

A careful look at how the inter-Korean talks slated for June 12 and 13 in Seoul came to be called off could make one wonder whether Pyongyang was serious about talking in the first place.

Above all, North Korea made a proposal for what would be the first meaningful talks in six years just ahead of a summit between the United States and China, its sole ally.

It offered to leave details to the discretion of the South.

Then, the so-called California summit between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping took place, the two reaching a broad agreement not to tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Whether it wanted to save Xi’s face or was looking for sudden love from Washington, Pyongyang behaved as if it could be a reliable negotiating partner.

But once the summit was over, it started to erect one barrier after another.

Seoul called for a meeting of ministers who it hoped could directly talk to its leader Kim Jong-un.

The South preferred to have Kim Yang-gon, head of the North’s United Front Department of the ruling Workers’ Party, meet Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae.

Then, the North balked, calling the meeting “high-level government-to-government” talks. Seoul accepted this. But Cheong Wa Dae expressed its dissatisfaction over the possible mismatch in the level of the chief delegates.

The North demanded that names of the other side’s delegation be exchanged simultaneously in the truce village of Panmunjeom Tuesday.

It stated that its five-member delegation would be represented by Kang Ji-young, a director at the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK), the North’s entity in charge of dealing with cross-border affairs.

In response, Seoul proposed Vice Unification Minister Kim Nam-shik as its chief negotiator, complaining that the proposed Pyongyang chief delegate was a level or two lower than Minister Ryoo.

North Korea wasted no time in cancelling the meeting, which would have been the first held under the new stewardship of South Korean President Park Geun-hye and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The standoff on the status of the two sides’ chief negotiators disappointed many, who expected the hard-earned chance of reconciliation would lead to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

By now, observers worry that inter-Korean relations might return to the situation where the North vowed preemptive nuclear attacks, while the South responded with a no-tolerance policy.

President Park’s senior press aide Lee Jung-hyun said the door to talks is still open; but the two are expected to struggle in finding ways of ironing out the differences on the status of their delegates.