South Korea has offered condolences to North Korea over Kim Jong-il’s death in the manner it apparently considered most appropriate. This should settle the dispute over whether or not the South should express condolences to the North.

The South Korean government directed its condolences to the North Korean people, not to the North Korean government or Kim’s successor ― his youngest son. By doing so, President Lee Myung-bak’s administration appeared to be aiming at appeasing conservatives, who were opposed to the idea of offering any condolences, and liberals, who demanded that they be expressed.

In sending a “message of consolation to the North Korean people,” the administration said it hopes that North Korea will resume stability at an early date and that South and North Korea will be able to cooperate for peace and prosperity in the Korean Peninsula. The United States offered condolences in a similar way.

Given that North Korea has yet to apologize for the sinking of a South Korean warship and the shelling of a South Korean island last year, offering condolences directly to the North Korean government was out of the question. Moreover, the Lee administration apparently did not want to rub its conservative electoral base the wrong way.

This is not to deny an assertion by some liberal groups that condolences offered directly to the North Korean government could help break the standoff in inter-Korean relations. The mourning period could be used as an occasion to reduce tension. But the problem is that it would not be a principled approach for the conservative administration.

For the same reason, it was also impossible for the administration to dispatch an official delegation with a mission to offer condolences. Instead, it decided to allow the widows of the late President Kim Dae-jung and Hyundai Group chairman Chung Mong-hun to visit the North, considering that the North dispatched condolence delegations when Kim and Chung died.

The South Korean government also decided not to allow huge Christmas trees to be lighted along the Demilitarized Zone ― a gesture designed to avoid provoking the North during its period of national mourning. Earlier, the North denounced the planned lighting of Christmas trees as an “attempt at psychological warfare” and vowed to take action against it.

Now, liberal groups should be reminded that the South Korean government did almost all it could do in its power under current circumstances.