Dual-track NK policy taking shape

By Jun Ji-hye

The Moon Jae-in government is moving to take a dual-track policy in dealing with North Korea to pursue its denuclearization and seek dialogue at the same time, despite continuing provocations.

The move is a clear sign of shifting away from his two conservative predecessors’ hawkish approach that lasted nine years.

As a first step to restore long-strained inter-Korean relations, the Moon administration is expected to allow private organizations to soon operate humanitarian programs for the North Korean people.

The Ministry of Unification said Monday that the government will resume humanitarian assistance to the North and civilian inter-Korean exchanges as long as they do not violate the international community’s sanctions.

The remark came on the same day when the Kim Jong-un regime announced its plan to mass-produce and deploy a new type of medium-range ballistic missile propelled by a solid fuel engine. The announcement was made a day after the test-firing of the new missile called “Pukguksong-2” by the North, and the KN-15 by the United States. This was the second missile provocation by the North since Moon’s inauguration, May 10.

The unification ministry spokesman Lee Duk-haeng stressed that the government will firmly respond to the North’s provocations, but he also does not believe that long-strained relations between the two Koreas will help maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

“The government will flexibly review civilian exchanges and other measures involving inter-Korean ties to an extent that they do not compromise international sanctions,” he said.

National Security Office head Chung Eui-yong also raised the need to gradually resume dialogue, starting with working-level talks.

“I believe we could resume exchanges in various areas such as personnel, social, cultural and sports, as long as they do not undermine the international efforts on sanctions against North Korea,” Moon’s top security adviser told reporters during his visit to the National Assembly, Monday, a day after his appointment.

Earlier than this, Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies who was a key adviser to Moon on security issues during the election campaign, told reporters last week that the Moon government will soon announce the reopening of an inter-Korean hotline at the truce village of Panmunjeom.

The liaison office was shuttered last February after the North severed the hotline in protest of former President Park Geun-hye’s closure of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, an inter-Korean joint venture in the North Korean border city. The shutdown was in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear test and missile launches.

Once inter-Korean exchanges begin at various levels, a great change is expected to happen with the May 24 Sanctions, a package of economic penalties on Pyongyang imposed by then-President Lee Myung-bak in 2010 in retaliation for the North’s torpedo attack on the Navy corvette Cheonan, which killed 46 South Korean sailors.

Under such sanctions, the Lee government severed almost all economic ties with the North, and the Park government maintained the basic structure of the sanctions that banned new investment in the North.

After the North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January last year, the Park government also severed all civilian exchanges in culture, sports and scholarship.

Throughout the campaign, Moon vowed to restore engagement with the North and play an active role in diplomatic efforts to curb its nuclear weapons program to end nearly a decade of frozen ties under his two conservative predecessors.

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea has claimed that the May 24 Sanctions have caused more damage to South Korean firms than to the regime in Pyongyang, calling for lifting them.

But, the conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party has called on the North to make an apology for the sinking of the Cheonan first before the sanctions are lifted.