Nobody is surprised with the uncertainty on the Korean peninsula, which still lacks proper conditions for normal relations between South and North Koreas. Lack of norms of co-existence and the dislike of Pyongyang and Seoul for each other leads to a gradual degradation of the situation and may find expression in the aggravation of military and political tension, which is getting more difficult to reduce.
Last year saw several negative incidents in relations between two Koreas: a mysterious sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan in the Yellow Sea in March, the shelling in the disputed territorial waters on November 23, which was about to turn into a large-scale military conflict between the North and the South. Then, as you know, Russia condemned North Korea’s shelling of the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which caused casualties. At the same time Russia urged the Republic of Korea to refrain from military measures to prevent the escalation of the conflict. Also in a statement dated December 17, 2010, Russia’s Foreign Ministry urged all the countries involved in the conflict to refrain from any steps, which could cause the aggravation of the situation.
Ahead of Seoul’s planned drills in the same disputed area, which had become “determination test area” where the North and the South could show each other their uncompromising attitude, the UN Security Council called up an emergency session. It’s important to mention that at this time the UN Security Council called up an emergency session was called by Russia that reflect its real concern regarding the situation potentially dangerous development in the immediate vicinity of the RF boundary.
Though the disagreements between the Security Council’s members did not allow them to approve a joint resolution, the very fact of holding this session made an effect, and two Koreas refrained from new military actions. The critical stage of the conflict with almost uninterrupted military maneuvers during several months (joint maneuvers of the US and South Korea and the South Korean maneuvers) near the borders of North Korea and China was bridged but the potential of the confrontation and the threat of new clashes remained.
All things considered, Pyongyang’s recent initiatives on reconciliation with Seoul look quite unexpected. The main article published in one of the DPRK leading newspapers on January 1 contained not only traditional formal threats to South Korea but also an appeal to reduce tension and to resume the dialogue between the two countries.
Few people paid attention to that article but on January 5, the governmental officials the representatives of political parties and public organizations of the DPRK held a joint meeting and decided to organize consultations with the parties and organizations of South Korea regardless of their political orientation and what is even more important – to hold intergovernmental talks.
It was declared that the dialogue’s goal was to discuss and resolve all the questions related to the important issues of the nations including the reduction of tension, peacemaking and cooperation development. In order to create a dialogue-friendly atmosphere Pyongyang proposed to Seoul to stop all propaganda campaigns against each other and to look intensively for the points of common interest.
Later on, a representative of the Committee for the peaceful reunification of Korea officially proposed to start the intergovernmental talks immediately without setting any preliminary terms; to hold consultations on the level of the Red Cross societies, to resume a tourist project on the mountain of Kumgansan and talks on the operation of a joint tech park in the city of Kaesŏng including the resumption of the activities of the Consulting Center for economic cooperation between North and South.
On January 10, North Korean sent the letters with the proposals and possible dates for holding talks to South Korea's Unification Ministry and other interested South Korean organizations. On January 12, after an eight-month break, a telephone hot line linking the Red Cross societies of the two Koreas became operational again.
North Korea’s peace attack caught Seoul flatfooted, which was clear from Seoul’s controversial response that followed right after Pyongyang made a U-turn in its policy. But instead of considering North Korea’s proposals properly and searching for a rational kernel in Pyongyang’s initiative South Korea began to look for excuses to call Pyongyang proposals inadmissible and to reject them.
The top officials from South Korea's Unification Ministry and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan made a number of statements, in which they doubted the sincerity of Pyongyang’s intentions. They said that a new demarche of North Korean was in line with its traditional tactics – first they escalate tension to the limit and than retreat showing a bastard pacifism trying to soften the opponent and to win concessions. According to Seoul, the goal of Pyongyang’s peace attack is to receive an economic aid from South Korea to sow discord within the South Korean society and create conditions for gradual handover of power in North Korea.
Probably these statements contain a grain of truth. Anyway Seoul did not use this opportunity for reconciliation. Seoul’s verdict was extremely tough: South Korea is not against the talks but the dialogue should be focused on North Korea’s penance for its indecent deeds against South Korea and the discussion of the prospects of North Korea’s nuclear disarmament. In other words, Seoul did not officially reject the proposal but set the terms for the talks, which were deliberately unacceptable for Pyongyang.
In fact, the officials in Seoul do not even try to conceal that they do not expect Pyongyang’s positive answer on its counter proposals and sooner resumption of talks. Moreover: it seems that the right conservative political elite in South Korea is interested not in looking for reconciliation and peaceful co-existence with North Korea but in the collapse of the North Korean regime, which is seen as the solution of all the problems on the Korean peninsula. For the sake of it Seoul is ready to keep a certain degree of tension in relations with Pyongyang, to freeze all forms of cooperation and to reject six lateral talks.
For this purpose South Korea is interacting with the US and Japan and this interaction looks more and more like a military political alliance. By now only one link is absent – ally relations between Seoul and Tokyo but this flaw is compensated by the parties’ steps towards each other under the guidance of the US.
On January 10-11, Japan’s Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa visited South Korea for the first time in the last five years. During his visit the parties discussed joint actions in response to “the challenges and threats from North Korea”. For the first time in the history of the post-war relations the agenda included such issues as a cooperation agreement between the Defense Ministries of the two countries and an agreement on of intelligence data exchange.
Mutual maneuvers by two Koreas, which often conceal the interests of the ruling elites, do not allow us to assume that the Korean crisis will be over in the near future. Nevertheless, if we compare the approaches of Seoul and Pyongyang to the crisis settlement we find the initiatives of Pyongyang more attractive, constructive and forward-looking.
In the absence of dialogue, working contacts on the official level, effective agreements and mechanism of conflicts’ settlement any scenario is possible on the Korean peninsula and its consequences may be unpredictable. We think that in this situation the role of the neighboring states, Russia and China, is especially important to deter two Koreas from rash acts and to maintain stability in the North Eastern Asia.
