President Park Geun-hye has started the process of building trust with North Korea by allowing a private organization to provide a humanitarian aid package to the isolated country.

Last Friday, the Ministry of Unification permitted the Eugene Bell Foundation, an aid organization that has long provided humanitarian services to the North, to ship some 680 million won worth of medicine for treatment of tuberculosis patients in the North.

The approval was the first granted by the Seoul government since the South’s aid flows to the North were halted following Pyongyang’s rocket launch in December.

It is notable that the decision came amid escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the wake of the North’s third nuclear test in February.

The permission signals that the Seoul government has started to put into action the principles of Park’s trustpolitik. The new policy calls for Seoul to continue to provide humanitarian aid to Pyongyang and maintain dialogue with it despite unexpected domestic or international events. This is in contrast with the hard-line policy pursued by the previous Lee Myung-bak government.

Park’s trustpolitik is also different from the appeasement policy of the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun governments as it entails going tough against the North if it engages in provocative acts, such as a military strike against the South.

Under the two-track policy, the South intends to expand aid to the North if it refrains from staging fresh provocations. The ministry is reportedly in the process of reviewing applications from other civilian organizations for permission to provide humanitarian aid to the North.

The North can also expect the South to resume exchanges, such as Mount Geumgangsan visits, which were stalled years ago.

Park’s trustpolitik would not work without cooperation from the North. As Park says, it takes two to tango. True, under the present circumstances, it is difficult to expect the North to notice the shift in the South’s policy and reciprocate its well-intentioned overtures with corresponding efforts to ease tensions.

Yet Pyongyang should realize that grasping the helping hand extended by the Seoul government is the only way for it to secure breathing space under the choking international sanctions against its nuclear test.

It should be brought home to the North that its old intimidation strategy will no longer work. Therefore it should stop escalating tensions and cast away the delusion that its nuclear blackmail would bring aid packages to it. To ensure its survival, it should follow the lead from Seoul and reinforce the trust-building process.

Even as the Seoul government seeks to engage the North, it should strengthen its security posture and be fully prepared to punish any armed provocations by the mercurial regime.