Is North Korea moving to reclassify South as foreign nation?

This file photo, provided by Hyundai Group on Aug. 3, 2018, shows group chief Hyun Jeong-eun, company officials and North Korean officials attending a memorial service for former company Chairman Chung Mong-hun at Mount Kumgang in North Korea. Yonhap

Pyongyang rejects Hyundai Group chief's attempt to visit the North

By Nam Hyun-woo

North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has rejected Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun's request to visit Mount Kumgang in August to hold a memorial service for her late husband and former chairman of the group, Chung Mong-hun.

This is a rare case of the regime using the foreign ministry, rather than agencies related to inter-Korean affairs, to make its position on an issue regarding South Korea.

The move is seen as North Korea's intent to handle South Korea as a foreign country, rather than acknowledging the two's nations' pre-war past, signaling a tougher environment for inter-Korean relations.

In a statement released through the North's Korean Central News Agency, Saturday, Kim Song-il, department director general of the North's foreign ministry said, “We make it clear that we have neither been informed about any South Korean personage's willingness to visit nor know about it and that we have no intention to examine it.”

The comments came after the Ministry of Unification said Friday that Hyundai Group, which had run sightseeing programs at Mount Kumgang in North Korea, submitted documents to the ministry to visit the North in August to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of former chairman Chung.

The submission of the plan is the first step in a two-stage process for South Koreans seeking to visit the North and meet people there. If all requirements are met, the process moves to the next stage, typically within seven days.

In the next stage, individuals can request an invitation from their North Korean counterparts to visit the North. If the invitation is issued from the North, it is then submitted to the unification ministry for government permission.

However, the North dismissed her visitation plan even before it was officially submitted, citing South Korean media reports. Hyun held a memorial service for the late Chung at the North Korean mountain in 2018 to mark the 15th anniversary of his death.

“It is the policy of the DPRK (North Korean) government that entry by any personage of South Korea into its territory cannot be allowed,” the statement reads. “The Mt. Kumgang tourist area is a part of the DPRK's territory and, accordingly, the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee cannot exercise any authority over the issue of entry into the DPRK. Such principle and policy are unchangeable and will be maintained in the future, too.”

A North Korean official on the fourth floor from the top, is seen at the damaged support center building of the Gaesong Industrial Complex, in this May 30 photo. The building was damaged when the North blew up the nearby Inter-Korean Liaison Office on June 16, 2020. Yonhap

The South's unification ministry immediately expressed its regret over the North's decision.

Attention is focused on the fact that the visit was rejected by the North's foreign ministry, not by institutes related to inter-Korean matters.

So far, the North has been responding to matters related to South Korea through the United Front Department of the Workers' Party of North Korea, National Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland or statements from Kim Jong-un's sister Kim Yo-jong, based on the notions that these are matters of the Korean nationals.

Experts said this signals a major shift in the North's perception of its relations with South Korea, which is heading away from any possibility of unification.

“So far, the South and North have been acknowledging inter-Korean relations as a special relation which pursues unification, so they viewed businesses running in the Gaesong Industrial Complex as trade between Koreans, thus not imposing tariffs,” said Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies.

“If inter-Korean relations become a country-to-country relation, there will be major conflicts in South Korea's Constitution regarding inter-Korean relations and more practical difficulties in pursuing unification will follow.”

In 1991, the two Koreas adopted the Inter-Korean Basic Agreement, which stipulated that the relationship between the two sides is “a special interim relationship stemming from the process towards unification,” not “a relationship between states.”

This is because each Korea does not recognize the other as a separate country, with Seoul's Constitution stating that the country's territory consists of the Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands. However, from the perspectives of the international community, the two Koreas are recognized as independent states.

Due to this, the two sides have seen their relationship as being specially formed in the process of pursuing reunification, not as a relationship between two separate countries.

“The foreign ministry's statement signals that the North is trying to see the South as a separate country, meaning that the basic agreement is losing its effect,” Yang said.

“In that case, Seoul's Constitutional spirit of pursuing unification is also facing a greater dilemma. If the North is viewed as a separate country, the cause for seeking unification gets weaker. The legal grounds for the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom may become an issue, and you even have to have a visa to visit the North, which is a violation of the South's Constitution.”

“From an international perspective, the North's defining of the South as a separate country is feared to weaken global involvement in Seoul's calls for Pyongyang's denuclearization,” Yang said.

Against this backdrop, Seoul's new Minister of Unification nominee dropped hints at a shift in the Yoon Suk Yeol administration's stance of respecting and executing all inter-Korean agreements.

“In the changed situation between the two Koreas, we need to have selective manners in considering agreements between South Korea and North Korea as we move forward,” nominee Kim Yung-ho said on June 30.