ed Still mired in deadlock

Ex-first lady’s visit to North ought to provide breakthrough

On Jan. 1, most Koreans, from both the South and North, saw strong desires for improved ties in their leaders’ New Year’s messages. Six months later, the high expectations have turned into deep disappointment as the inter-Korean relationship went from bad to worse. Especially baffling, even for longtime Korea watchers, were the confusing signals sent out by both governments.

“The relationship between the Koreas has reached a catastrophe beyond recovery or resolution,” said North Korea’s official mouthpiece Thursday. “Words can no longer solve our problems … only an ultimate showdown awaits us.”

The North’s declaration of an end to inter-Korean dialogue came just 10 days after Pyongyang expressed a willingness to talk on the anniversary of the first inter-Korean summit. What has enraged the reclusive regime was last week’s opening in Seoul of a U.N. field office tracking North Korea’s human rights abuses.

Moves by the South are no less confusing. Seoul imposed financial sanctions on Taiwanese and Syrian agencies and individuals for their suspected involvement in arms exports to the isolationist regime. These were the first independent financial penalties ever issued by the South Korean government, which had remained content joining U.N.-led sanctions. Predictably, the North reacted in the most indignant manner. The South’s action also came a few days after its unification minister proposed humanitarian aid to help ease a drought-caused food shortage in the North.

It’s hard to know whether these fickle moves made by the two Koreas reflect their smokescreen tactics or are the evidence that both, especially the South, have no “control towers” in dealing with each other. The doves and hawks on each side keep colliding, and even some external forces surrounding them, especially in the South, are putting the brakes on what they view as speeding toward inter-Korean rapprochement.

Particularly hard to understand in this regard was the unprecedented financial sanctions by Seoul, which came, coincidentally or not, after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called for stepped-up pressure on North Korea. As has been affirmed repeatedly, however, this kind of financial restriction can hardly rectify the behavior of the isolationist regime, but instead end up forcing it to flinch further inside while pledging revenge in progressively more provocative ways.

This is no time for the Koreas to be mired in shadow play. Both should change. The North must begin to improve its dire human rights situation, because the international community will neither neglect nor condone the egregious violations. Seoul ought to provide sufficient humanitarian aid to Pyongyang to this end, because sticks without carrots in human rights issues will only deepen the North’s suspicions about regime change. There is a telling statistic: South Korea has spent 3.4 trillion won on overseas aid in the past five years. Only 56.6 billion won, or 1.68 percent of the total, went to the North in the form of economic assistance.

It is against this backdrop that Lee Hee-ho, wife of the late President Kim Dae-jung, is seeking to visit North Korea. The Koreas must use the occasion to restart their frozen exchanges. President Park Geun-hye ought to deliver a personal letter to her North Korean counterpart through the former first lady.

President Park, whose leadership has been the subject of increasing doubts, needs to find a breakthrough in inter-Korean détente. Restoration of amicable ties between the Koreas will be a boon for the President and the nation as well. For what reason does she hesitate?