On the 29th, North Korea, in response to remarks made by Joint Chiefs General Kim Tae Young, threatened, “If he [General Kim] does not immediately withdraw his comment and make an apology, all North-South dialogue will cease.”
Against the backdrop of heightening tensions following the evacuation of South Korean delegates from the Kaesong Industrial Complex on the 27th and the firing of missiles towards the West Sea on the 28th, interest in this issue has been gaining.
It was confirmed on the 30th by the Ministry of National Defense that North Korea sent a telephone communication report via Lieutenant General Kim Young Chul, the North Korean head at the Inter-Korea general-level talks. South Korea’s top representative, Major General Kwon Oh Sung, received the report. The Ministry announced they would wait a few days before sending a reply.
At a hearing for the assignment of Joint Chiefs General on the 26th, Kim Tae Young stated that should North Korea attack South Korea with a small scale nuclear weapon, the South would “confirm its place of origin and attack it.” This statement has aroused the North to initiate provocations against the South.
Currently, the Ministry has been trying to analyze the North’s real intentions through close talks with related ministries and offices.
North Korea’s Chosun (North Korea) Central Agency said, “In the case of an absence of an apology, we will take the South Korean government’s position as wanting to cease all North-South dialogue and contact. We will implement a firm policy which wholly prohibits the passage through the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) by South Korean officials, including army personnel.”
The communication report stipulated that General Kim’s reply used the “violent language of a preemptive strike” and insisted, “In North-South Korea relations, until now, this is the most severe challenge and is an imprudent act of provocation which is no different from an official declaration of war. We will respond with a preemptive strike in our own way.”
Simultaneously, the Military Review Committee of Chosun Central Agency reconfirmed on the 30th its position that all North-South dialogue will be stopped if an apology and retraction of the statement is not made. “If a preemptive strike commences, everything will become ashes, not just a sea of fire.”
North Korea’s continuous hard-line statements have been interpreted as tactics to avoid the U.S.’s threat regarding the nuclear declaration while also inducing tensions by disrupting public discussions regarding North Korean policy within South Korea during the April 9th general election period. Before the new South Korean administration becomes too seasoned.
However, it can be observed that an on-the-spot response by the Lee Myung Bak administration will not be feasible. The administration revealed that it would not reveal a “carrot policy” for a breakthrough and emphasized a “confident” position regarding North Korea despite the evacuation of the Kaesong Industrial Complex staff. Accordingly, the rupture in North-South Korean relations for a considerable period seems inevitable given that a South Korean response to the North’s threat seems unlikely for now.
A high-level source in the government expressed, “We will stick to our principles for now, but President Lee’s position of flexibly dealing with the issue has not changed. We are talking with related departments for preparing a plan for moving forward.”
It will also be difficult for North Korea, when taking into consideration the nuclear cooperation between U.S. and the North, to test long-range missiles or conduct nuclear tests. Only the possibility of local provocation in the West Sea region, which has been delayed every year, is on the table, so a physical collision can be expected with the May-June blue crab-catching season just around the corner.
With the rapid closing of the gap in U.S.-South Korean relations after the recent arrival of the Lee Myung Bak administration, the prevailing atmosphere is one of prioritizing the resolution of the nuclear issue. In particular, with the Lee Myung Bak administration’s North Korea policy “Vision 3000: Denuclearization and Opening” which presumes the North’s nuclear abandonment, it has shown a completely different position from the prior administrations which pursued the Sunshine Policy.
Amidst such circumstances, the spokesperson for the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned on the 28th, “If the South insists on the declaration of the Uranium Enriched Program (UEP), it will have a serious effect on the disablement of the nuclear facilities.” That is, it went ahead and revealed a position of refusal among the various plans for declaration proposed by the U.S. It will probably not break the Six Party Talk framework, but seems to be laying the foundation for a superior hand in negotiations.
Through such continuously strong messages towards the U.S. and South Korea, the North made clear that the nuclear issue would not easily be resolved.
Kim Tae Woo, the Chair of the Arms Control Studies Division of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, gave the following analysis in the phone conversation with the Daily NK, “The negotiations for rice and fertilizer aid has been delayed and the North Korean policy has been evaluated as differing from the past, so the North’s acts are like posing a question to the Lee administration: ‘Moving forward, how will you resolve North-South Korean relations?'” In addition, Kim proposed the strategic possibility of the North inducing tensions within the South’s society [between the Left and the Right] ahead of the general election in South Korea.
At the same time, he emphasized, “If the Lee administration responds one by one to North Korea’s hypersensitive responses, they will get caught up in the tactics of the North.” Furthermore, he forecasted, “The possibility of the Lee Myung Bak administration responding on-the-spot is low. In this case, there is a possibility that North Korea will use the threat card against the South once more through an invasion of the NLL and provocation in the West Sea.”
The former Minister of National Defense Kim Jang Soo, just before his retirement, had given a warning to the Joint Chiefs of Staffs and other military chief executives regarding the possibility of the North Korea causing a provocation in the West Sea.
