Wise response to dialogue offer

North Korea in a joint statement Wednesday by its government, political parties and social organizations that it is willing to meet anybody who wants to “go hand-in-hand with us.” Pyongyang also proposed broad dialogue and negotiations with South Korean political parties and organizations, including government authorities. This is an about-face for the North, which had threatened on May 25 last year to sever all ties and suspend dialogue and contact with the South under the Lee Myung-bak administration in a statement issued by the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.

Pyongyang passed the buck for the sorry state of inter-Korean relations by saying not one word of apology for the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last year. The North now says it is willing to meet anyone who wants to "go hand-in-hand" regardless of the past. The announcement was made in the name of the North Korean government as well as the ruling Workers’ Party and social organizations, which bear no clear responsibility for the two attacks, and released by the (North) Korean Central News Agency. This raises doubts over the true intention behind the proposal. The North apparently wants to use this as a tool to alleviate its food shortage by getting international humanitarian aid through the lifting of sanctions and allowing its third-generation power transfer to proceed smoothly.

Seeking to end its global isolation since the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong attacks, the North seems to want to use inter-Korean talks as a stepping stone to bilateral dialogue with Washington and a meeting with Beijing (the six-way nuclear talks). The North might believe it can encourage internal conflict in the South by suggesting inter-Korean talks. Immediately after the Yeonpyeong attack, 70 percent of South Koreans criticized the North. In an opinion poll taken at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, however, more wanted inter-Korean dialogue rather than maintaining a hard-line stance. The North might have expected that leftist slogans would work with time after heated criticism of the North in the South in the wake of the two attacks.

Seoul needs a clever response based on a thorough analysis of what Pyongyang has in mind for waging psychological warfare. In this regard, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy Stephen Bosworth and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan reconfirmed Wednesday the principle that dialogue should not just be dialogue and that North Korea should show sincerity toward denuclearization. Seoul must make clear to Pyongyang that if the North’s proposal for inter-Korean dialogue is sincere, it must apologize for its provocations first and show a commitment to denuclearization under the 2005 joint statement.