The burgeoning hopes for cross-border reconciliation are quickly fading since the two Koreas scrapped their much-anticipated talks over lead negotiators in another sign of deep-rooted mistrust.

The two-day meeting was called off late Tuesday by Pyongyang after insisting that Seoul send as the head of the delegation its unification minister, not vice unification minister as suggested.

No statement has yet been released by North Korea since. But in a cancellation notice it berated the South for the collapse of the gathering, ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk said.

The North called the South’s choice of vice minister a “mockery of the governmental talks, distortion of the agreement between working-level officials (on Sunday) and a grave provocation,” he told a news conference.

Seoul dismissed the claim as an “abnormal custom,” saying Pyongyang’s own chief negotiator, who is a senior official from its agency in charge of South Korean affairs, could not be on the same level as minister.

“It doesn’t make sense at all to reject dialogue by taking issue with the level of vice unification minister who can take care of, discuss and resolve inter-Korean issues,” Kim said.

Prime Minister Chung Hong-won criticized Pyongyang’s lack of sincerity. “Dialogue should be accepting each other on the same level. Dialogue in which one side is unilaterally humiliated has no authenticity,” he told lawmakers.

The cancellation of the meeting, which would have otherwise been the first high-level government dialogue since 2007, crushed the resurgent mood for a thaw in cross-border ties frayed by both sides’ hard-line policies, missile and atomic tests and threats of nuclear war.

While critics questioned Seoul’s negotiation strategy and tactics, others pointed to years of distrust and animosity, differences in their political systems and the absence of regular communication channels as the underlying reasons for failure.

A cross-border communication line based at the border truce village of Panmunjeom appeared to have been cut off Wednesday as the North did not answer calls from the South, the Unification Ministry said.

The Red Cross channel was severed amid tensions in March together with three other inter-Korean military links and one with the U.N. Command but restored last Friday to facilitate the meeting.

“A flexible approach was necessary toward the level of the lead delegate because there were no exact counterparts between the two Koreas due to differences in their systems,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior fellow of the private Sejong Institute, in his commentary.

“But the talks foundered eventually because of the two governments’ lack of bargaining power and rigidity.”

Sohn Yong-woo, a professor at Hannam University’s Graduate School of National Defense Strategy in Daejeon, said Pyongyang’s last-minute withdrawal also showed young leader Kim Jong-un’s sloppy strategic assessment and management of feuds between hardliners and moderates.

“He should formulate his own strategies and tactics by taking account of the overall situation, the U.S.-China summit and other factors but his inexperience and poor judgment has exposed an acute internal strife,” he said.

But analysts caution that any protraction of the blame game may blow the hard-won chance for dialogue for good.

The North said it was “postponing” its plan to send a delegation, while the South called for a return to dialogue.

The Rodong Sinmun, a mouthpiece of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, stressed the need for a joint celebration of the June 15, 2000, peace declaration without mentioning the collapse of the governmental meeting.

“It is more important than anything to actively boost the environment for the development of inter-Korean ties according to our preemptive dialogue offer,” it said.

“A hostile attitude or suspicion is not a sincere attitude toward dialogue.”

Observers are now deflecting their attention to the annual ASEAN Regional Forum in Brunei and the first South Korea-China summit, both slated for later this month.

The region’s largest security conference brings together Pyongyang, Seoul, Washington and other key players. Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se is scheduled to attend and may have a chance to meet with his North Korean counterpart Pak Ui-chun as other top diplomats have done in the past.

While reaffirming no change in the delegates, the Unification Ministry said it was still open to talks with Pyongyang.

“Though the governmental meeting planned for today is dead, our stance is that we can always hold talks with the current delegations from both sides if North Korea changes its position,” a senior official told reporters on condition of anonymity. “The door for dialogue is always open.” 


By Shin Hyon-hee
(heeshin@heraldcorp.com)