The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
N. Korea’s overture raises hopes, but huge obstacles
South Korea wary of calls for talks as sanctions take toll.
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — On both sides of the divided Korean Peninsula, the timing seems right.
The New Year’s Day proposal by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, for direct talks with South Korea came as sanctions appear to be bit- ing, with reports of shortages in the North and new pressure by Washington to intercept ships engaged in fuel smuggling.
The initiative was quickly embraced by South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, who sees his first concrete chance to carry out his campaign agenda of engaging with the North, while also easing tensions as Trump’s warlike threats have rattled his country.
But if this is a potential opening for a thaw, it is a small one. Skepticism abounds not only in Wash- ington but also among South Koreans.
Many in the country are mindful of how the so-called sunshine policy of two previous progressive leaders, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moohyun, failed to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, and remain wary of its revival.
As Moon learned from his predecessors’ experiences, any South Korean leader accused of risking the alliance with Washington in trying to improve ties with the North could become a light- ning rod of conservative ire.
“If there are still those who think they can solve the North Korean nuclear problem and problems between the South and the North through dialogue, they must be crazy,” said Yoo Dong-ryul, a right- wing director of the Seoulbased Korea Institute for Lib- eral Democracy.
While most South Kore- ans today favor dialogue and peaceful accommodation with North Korea, many also fear that hastily engaging and granting the North economic concessions would throw a lifeline to Kim just as sanc- tions are squeezing his government.
In his New Year’s Day speech, Kim offered to send an Olympic delegation to the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, next month. But he also boasted that his country was now a nuclear power capable of thwarting a U.S.-led war on the peninsula, and he urged the South to abandon Wash- ington’s campaign for sanctions and to work with “fellow countrymen” for peace — an opening Moon seized on.
“The Pyeongchang Olym- pics and the Paralympics there will become a clar- ion of peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Moon said on Wednesday, the day Kim also restored a cross-border telephone hotline that could facilitate such negotiations. “We must move through the crisis and toward peace like an icebreaker.”
South Koreans have grown increasingly nervous over the past year about Kim’s nuclear brinkmanship. But they have also begun questioning the implications of their alli- ance with a Washington led by an often unpredictable Trump, who has threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea and this week talked of his power to wage nuclear war against Kim.
Moon insists that dialogue has become more urgent than ever because the South would bear the brunt of any war on the peninsula. South Korean officials privately say that the next several months may be the only opportunity to use negotiations to halt the North’s nuclear weapons program before it acquires a functional intercontinen- tal ballistic missile.
While many South Koreans support a peaceful resolution to the tensions, many also question Moon’s approach — and Kim’s sincerity.
Analysts say Kim’s strategy is to make his nuclear weap- ons a fait accompli, while seeking a way to weaken the choking sanctions.
“In 2018, North Korea will likely launch an aggressive dialogue and peace offense and use the improvement of ties with the South to head off the sanctions and pressure,” the South’s government-run Korea Institute for National Unification said in an analysis of Kim’s New Year’s speech. “It is using the Pyeongchang Olympics to start to implement its approach.”
In his New Year’s speech, Kim acknowledged his country faced “the harshest-ever challenges” because of the sanctions.
And the Olympics offered an opening.
“Kim Jong Un knew that South Korea was desperate for the North to join the Pyeongchang Olympics and resume inter-Korean dialogue,” Chun Yung-woo, a former South Korean nuclear negotiator, said in a Facebook post. “Recognizing the South’s weakness, he is using it to try to undermine the South’s alliance with Washington, drawing it away from the United States and using it as a shield against possible American military action.”
On Thursday, Trump tweeted that his tough approach was working, saying that it brought North Korea to the negotiating table and that talks “are a good thing.”
Also on Thursday, Moon talked with Trump and said that he promised to consult fully with Washington during South Korea’s talks with the North, adding that they would help induce dialogue between the North and Washington, the South Korean president’s office said.
According to the statement from Moon’s office, Trump said the United States supported Moon “100 percent.” Trump also accepted Moon’s proposal that the allies postpone their joint annual military exercises during the Olympics, the statement said.