The uneasy relations between Pyongyang and Seoul grew even tenser recently. South Korean Unification Minister Kim Ha Joong said that the jointly run industrial park in Kaesong would not be expanded until progress on the North Korean nuclear issue was made. Later, General Kim Tae Young, South Korea's new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a parliamentary hearing that the military would attack a suspected North Korean nuclear weapons site if it believed the country was going to launch a nuclear attack on South Korea.

In response, North Korea expelled all South Korea officials from the industrial park in North Korea, tested a barrage of short-range missiles off its western coast and prohibited South Korean government officials from crossing the Military Demarcation Line. North Korean military leaders said they would view Kim Tae Young's remarks as "tantamount to a declaration of war" if Seoul did not apologize, the Chosun Ilbo, North Korea's daily newspaper, reported on March 31. The newspaper said that relations between Pyongyang and Seoul had hit their lowest point since October 2006 when North Korea conducted a nuclear test.

Because inter-Korean relations are extremely important to the ongoing discussions about North Korea's denuclearization, the two sides now must take precise measures to diffuse the current hostility, foreign affairs analysts said.

Lee's new policy

Analysts from both China and the United States believe that the remarks of two South Korean officials were a superficial reason for the dispute. They say that South Korean President Lee Myung Bak's hardline policy against North Korea is the real cause, because it differs greatly from the "sunshine policy" of his two predecessors, Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun. This factor and the disagreement between North Korea and the United States over Pyongyang's failure to provide a list of all its nuclear assets by a December 31, 2007 deadline have further endangered the efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

Gary Samore, Vice President and Director of Studies at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, said North Korea's refusal to provide a full and accurate initial declaration of its nuclear activities and programs indicated that it was not prepared at this time to acknowledge its nuclear program.

"As a result, the United States is not willing to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and begin negotiations for ‘phase three' of the denuclearization process, which includes the elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons, establishment of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula and normalization of relations between Washington and Pyongyang," Samore told Beijing Review.

Washington is increasingly concerned about the fact that North Korea's nuclear facility declaration list and plans for dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear facility did not address the question of weapons that the country may already have, said Stephan M. Haggard, professor of Korea-Pacific Studies and Director of the Korea-Pacific Program at the University of California, Berkeley.

"My interpretation is that North Korea is bargaining and trying to show that it is tough, but the change in South Korean strategy makes it more difficult to do that," Haggard said, referring to Lee's hardline policy on North Korea.

Unlike the last two South Korean presidents, Lee insists that the nuclear issue be resolved first and that future economic cooperation would be conditional.

"An additional component of the new administration's policy is that it will discuss openly issues of human rights, including through the UN," Haggard said.

Charles Armstrong, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University, said, "President Lee promised during his campaign that he would take a tougher position toward North Korea than his predecessors, and it appears that he is fulfilling that promise by demanding that North Korea verify its nuclear program before receiving more aid from South Korea."

Lee's tough stance has made the situation even worse, said Shi Yongming, associate researcher at the Chinese Institute of International Studies. During Roh's administration, the South Korean Government acted as a lubricant between North Korea and the United States. South Korea's stance would continue to be "extremely important" in moving the denuclearization process forward, Shi said.

"Even if the United States denied some of North Korea's demands, North Korea might make some concessions, because it sees a high safety factor due to South Korea's cooperative attitude," Shi told Beijing Review. After Lee won the presidential election last December, North Korea started slowing down the pace of the dismantling of its nuclear facilities and adopted a wait-and-see attitude about Lee's policy, Shi said.

Lee's stance is more "pro-U.S." and "conservative compared to his predecessors," Shi said. In February, Lee said that if Pyongyang wanted to keep receiving aid, it had to improve its human rights record, abide by an international nuclear disarmament deal and start returning the more than 1,000 South Koreans captured or held since the 1950-53 Korean War. Lee's tough stance has not given North Korea much leeway, Shi said.

"The enraged North Korea had fewer choices so it returned to a hardline approach," he said.

Future prospects

In the meantime, the U.S. Government would not make any adjustment to its policy on North Korea in the short term, because the country is focused on the candidates for the presidential election in November, Shi said.

"For much of the Bush administration, the United States was more reluctant than South Korea to push for engagement with North Korea," said Armstrong from Columbia University. For the last two years, the United States and South Korea have been more or less in agreement about their North Korea policy, but with the new South Korean administration, it looks as though South Korea is less enthusiastic about engagement than the United States. Coordination between the United States and South Korea over North Korea policy has often been a problem, especially whenever there is a change of leadership in either country, Armstrong said.

While some analysts have different opinions about Lee's policy on North Korea, they all believe that the South Korean Government's hardline approach would provoke a tougher response from Pyongyang on the denuclearization process.

"Under these circumstances, I think it is appropriate and helpful for President Lee to announce that he will not expand economic cooperation with North Korea until the latter begins to cooperate with its commitments under the February 2007 six-party agreement," said Samore, referring to North Korea's commitment to the denuclearization of the peninsula. In any case, Lee's policy toward North Korea "could lead North Korea to be more flexible or more hardline," he said.

Shi suggested that Lee's administration should be "less ideological" while dealing with inter-Korean relations. North Korea's tough responses may be a "psychological tactic," as some South Korean governmental officials have pointed out, Shi said. "But South Korea's hardline attitude definitely would drive its northern neighbor farther away. Seoul should take active measures to reconcile with Pyongyang."

Shi also offered a possible solution to the stalled process: North Korea and the United States should sign a new agreement on the nuclear facility declaration list, which could be divided into several different steps that each side could accept.

"Without a practical solution, even if the six-party talks resume this year, the efforts of all parties will be in vain," Shi said, adding that all sides should contribute to trying to ease the current stalemate.

Armstrong from Columbia University agreed that it was in the interest of all parties to promote reconciliation between North Korea and South Korea and between North Korea and the United States. Doing so would reduce tensions, allow greater communication and cooperation between the countries and allow them to deepen their economic exchanges, he said.

"But the path to that reconciliation will be long, complicated and difficult," he said.

(With reporting by Wang Yanjuan and Chen Wen in New York)

The Tense Situation on the Korean Peninsula in 2008

February 25: Lee Myung Bak took office as South Korean president. He promised to end unconditional aid to North Korea, saying Pyongyang must improve its human rights record and return South Koreans captured or held since the Korean War.

March 19: South Korean Unification Minister Kim Ha Joong said that the Kaesong Industrial Park would not be expanded until progress on the North Korean nuclear issue was made.

March 26: South Korean Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Kim Tae Young said that South Korea would preemptively strike a suspected nuclear weapons site in North Korea if Pyongyang launched a nuclear attack on South Korea.

March 27: Pyongyang expelled South Korean officials who worked at the Kaesong Industrial Park.

March 28: North Korea test-fired short-range missiles and warned it would "mercilessly wipe out" any South Korean warships that violated its waters.

March 29: North Korea announced it would not allow South Korean military personnel and other officials to cross the Military Demarcation Line.

Source: Xinhua News Agency