Pyongyang’s June 15th Event, South Korea Will Not Participate

Pyongyang’s June 15th Event, South Korea Will Not Participate

South Korea will not participate in the event held in Pyongyang between June 14~17 which celebrates the 7th anniversary of the June 15 South-North Korea Joint Declaration.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Unification revealed on the 11th, “The South Korean delegates were deliberating the situation (BDA issue and non-fulfillment of the February 13 Agreement) until now, but has decided not to participate in the event.”

Regarding this decision made 3 days prior to the event, the spokesperson said, “The decision was made after practical and physical considerations” and revealed, “Even if North Korea presents invitations in future, it will be difficult to accept them.”

The spokesperson said, “Unrelated to the government’s nonattendance, the government will support NGO’s participating in the events for the June 15 Joint Declaration” and added that the government’s absence in the events would not greatly impact the flow of normalizing South-North relations.

Further, the spokesperson said, “Following the 21st South-North Cabinet Talks, working groups were established to develop underground resources and light industries” and remarked, “In future, the government will continue to try to customize and systematize South-North relations through talks between the two governments.”

At the 20th Cabinet Talks in March, South and North Korean officials discussed participating in the June 15 and August 15 events. Minister of Unification, Lee Jae Jung was appointed as head representative and until now had been contemplating Pyongyang’s June 14~17 proposal.

At the 20th Cabinet Talks, South Korea promised to support North Korea with 40,000tons of rice on the condition that North Korea implements the initial actions of the Feb 13 Agreement. Otherwise, South Korea confirmed that it would be difficult to keep its end of the bargain also.

Even until 3 days prior to the event, North Korea made no efforts in contacting the South nor displayed any notion of offering a formal invitation. It seems that the government decided not to participate in the event for this reason.

Furthermore, it is predicted that the government’s nonattendance of the joint event will have little or no impact on the Feb 13 Agreement as a result of the transparent South-North relations.

This is the first time the representative government will not attend the June 15 South-North Joint Event since it was first launched in 2005.

In relation, the Chosun Shinbo, a newspaper published by the General Association of North Korean Residents in Japan reported on the 11th, “Unless fundamental issues are solved legally and systematically, we are at a stage where it will be difficult to implement additional new agreements and protocols (to South-North relations).”