Consistent message to Pyongyang needed in inter-Korean talks, U.S.-China summit

South and North Korea scrambled Friday to prepare for the inter-Korean ministerial meeting scheduled for Wednesday next week in Seoul. The North suggested Kaesong in the North as venue for working-level contact scheduled for Sunday, but the South made a counter-proposal by suggesting “Peace House” at the southern section of the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom. An opportunity has been prepared to restore inter-Korean ties, considering that a ministerial meeting, which last took place in Seoul in June 2007, is the channel of highest level dialogue that comprehensively addresses relations between the two Koreas. It is hoped that the meeting will serve as an occasion to coordinate a new framework of inter-Korean ties, going beyond bringing back on track inter-Korean relations, which were cut off during the Lee Myung-bak administration.

The South Korean government needs a prudent approach, in which it achieves pressing issues one by one. It should speedily normalize the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Park in the North and resume reunions of separated families to console pain and suffering of people separated from their loved ones. It should also exert all-out efforts to find clues to resolving the issue of South Korean prisoners of war and South Koreans kidnapped by the North.

The upcoming ministerial talk will be a litmus test that will determine the orientation and overall strategy of the Korean Peninsula trust-building process, the new government’s North Korea policy. Seoul should also agonize over to what extent it will link the development of inter-Korean relations with North Korean nuclear standoff, and whether to lift the May 24, 2010 measures that were put in place to counter the sinking of South Korean naval corvette Cheonan by the North’s torpedo attack, and artillery attacks on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. Even though Seoul allows for humanitarian aid to help infants and young children in the North, it should secure a specific promise by Pyongyang that would guarantee prevention of the North’s aggressions before seeking massive economic cooperation projects including food aid.

Amid thawing mood in inter-Korean relations, attention is also focusing on the results of the U.S.-China summit that will take place in the U.S. on Friday and Saturday. As the two sides declared that they will put utmost priority on North Korean nuclear treat in their summit, the two leaders will deliver clear statements on the denuclearization of North Korea. Unless progress is made in the effort to denuclearize the North, peace will prove fragile, even if inter-Korean relations improve.

Ultimately, the development of inter-Korean relations should be directed toward contributing to the denuclearization of North Korea and settlement of lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. Only when the message to be conveyed by the South Korean government during inter-Korean talks, and the message to be adopted by the U.S.-China summit are consistent, will the South Korea-China summit set to take place from June 27 to 30 in Beijing gather momentum.

As South Korean President Park Geun-hye stressed in her meeting with military leaders on Friday, the South should not be negligent in its preparedness for the North’s possible surprise provocation, even while preparing for inter-Korean dialogue. It should be kept in mind that if security is on shaky ground, dialogue and peace will lose ground for the very existence.