A couple of days ago the North reportedly told the South (Associated Press – February 3, 2012) that they were willing to hold immediate talks if certain preconditions were met. These conditions included:
South Korea should apologize for failing to show proper respect to Kim Jong Il during the mourning period that followed the late leader’s Dec. 17 death. It also posed questions about Seoul stopping criticism of Pyongyang over two deadly 2010 attacks blamed on North Korea, and following through on previous agreements that call for South Korean investments in the North.
The North also said U.S.-South Korean military drills must end. “It does not make sense to sit face to face with (an) enemy carrying a dagger by the belt and talk about peace,” the North’s statement said. Pyongyang calls the drills a rehearsal for war. A round of military exercises by the allies is to start later this month.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry promptly replied that
it regrets the North’s “unreasonable claims as part of its propaganda at an important juncture for peace” and “does not feel the need to respond to these questions put forth by North Korea one by one.”
The Unification Ministry may not have felt the need to respond but apparently others are willing to speak to the Norks. According to the AFP (February 6, 2012):
A group of South Korean lawmakers will pay a rare visit this week to a jointly-run industrial estate in North Korea despite political tensions, Seoul announced Monday.
The North told the South in a message Sunday that it would accept the trip by the eight legislators, who handle either inter-Korean relations or foreign affairs, said unification ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-Suk.
And to think I thought Kaesong was already foreclosed on by the Norks – oops….that was the mountain resort. But why would South Korea be willing to take the chance that the NORKs might decide to put Kaesong up for sale? Well, according to AFP, the estate “brings together South Korean capital and expertise with the North’s cheap labour.”
More than 50,000 North Koreans, mostly women, work at 123 South Korean firms producing clothes, utensils, watches and other items. Last year production was worth a record $400 million.
Kaesong serves as a legitimate source of hard currency for the impoverished and sanctions-hit nation. Supporters of the project say it also serves to educate the communist state about the free-market system.
Perhaps the South Korean government – rather than go North for talks – should just let their fingers do the walking and call the Norks on one of their more than one million cell phones (Chosun Ilbo, February 6, 2012). But they better hurry before all the pro-North Korean Apps are removed from the South Korean Army’s phones (Yonhap News, February 6, 2012).
But talk isn’t the only thing that may be crossing the border. Shim Jae Hoon at Korea Herald (February 5, 2012) notes that South Korea is prepared to give North Korea a “grand bargain deal” if the North gives up its nuclear weapons. There is obviously some concern there – especially when the science journal “Nature” (February 3, 2012) reports that the Norks might have conducted two covert nuclear weapon tests in 2010.
It might also explain a bizarre statement issued by North Korea’s state news agency in May 2010, which said that the country had achieved nuclear fusion. The news was largely ridiculed in the South Korean and Western media — but it was not so quickly dismissed by the small circle of experts who devote their careers to identifying covert nuclear tests. South Korean scientists had detected a whiff of radioactive xenon at around that time, hinting at nuclear activity in its northern neighbour, which had already tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009.
But the North isn’t just using high-tech to threaten the South. North Korean kamikaze drones (Chosun Ilbo – February 6, 2012) might be used against South Korea’s islands.
They “are less sophisticated than up-to-date unmanned attack aircraft that the U.S. used in the Afghan and Iraq War,” a military expert said. “But our military could suffer damage if development succeeds and the North launches kamikaze-style attacks.”
Apparently this new threat comes in the way of old American technology that was exported to the Middle East and was sold to the North from the ever popular Syrians (Fox News February 5, 2012).
South Korea will answer this threat with its own up-to-date technology: a set of four dirigibles at a cost of 7-8 billion won.
