The Marmot’s Hole

Just jotting down some notes after a glance at today’s news.

So, Who’ll Be Talking?

Debate is expected over who, exactly, will comprise the “three or four” parties that will discuss bringing the Korean War to its official conclusion, reports Yonhap. US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said on Oct 2 that the relevant parties would directly deal with the issue of a peace mechanism on the Korean Peninsula, but there were various opinions on whether two, three or four parties would participate. He stressed that while the US wanted to play any role given to it in building a peace regime to replace the armistice, nothing has yet been decided.

In an email to Yonhap, Scott Snyder of the Asia Foundation said in the case of three party talks, China would be excluded, but the question was quite interesting and both Koreas have a bit more explaining to do on the matter.

AP, meanwhile, said for substantive progress to be made on a peace accord, the US and China naturally needed to be included, but hinted that South Korea might be the party left out in three party talks, since Seoul was not party to the armistice agreement signed in 1953.

At present, most Korean experts believe three-party talks would include both Koreas and the US, and China if expanded to four parties. There are questions, however, over whether it would be China or South Korea left out of talks if they are limited to only three parties, so the possibility of intense debate over the matter cannot be disregarded.

Experts believe that while China was a party to the armistice agreement, it no longer has troops stationed in Korea, so it should be excluded as a party to peace regime negotiations. They believe this is the position taken by Kim Jong-il during the last intra-Korean summit.

Wither the NLL?

Debate is also expected over the agreement to designate a “special belt of peaceful cooperation” in the West Sea, reports MBC. Namely, there are questions over where this belt and joint fishing zone will be established, and the opening of direct shipping lanes for North Korean ships between Incheon and Haeju runs up against the issue of the Northern Limit Line, or NLL.

Some say that while no direct mention of the NLL was made, the agreement basically says that while the NLL may exist, there’s no need to defend it.

Accordingly, this is expected to be a major item of discussion in talks between the two Koreas’ defense ministers set for next month in Pyongyang.

The South Korean defense minister, however, counts the keeping of the NLL as ones of the successful results of the summit talks, and that talk that the setting up of a joint fishing area in the West Sea would weaken the NLL is mistaken.

Well, I Wasn’t Expecting Much

In the Dong-A Ilbo, Choi Sung-yong, the head of a group representing the families of those abducted by North Korea, said he wasn’t disappointed by the peace declaration… because it was exactly as he expected. He noted that in both summits, no mention of South Korean abductees in North Korea was made. Some 480 South Koreans have been abducted to the North since the country was divided, although only 120 have been confirmed alive.

Press Reactions

No, I haven’t gone through all the editorials.

Needless to say, though, the Chosun Ilbo is highly skeptical about the whole thing. The Hankyoreh, on the other hand, is declaring peace in our time.

Those are probably the only two editorials you need to read to see how debate on the summit results is likely to shape up, but I’ll look at more when time permits.

Marmot’s Notes

My first inclination any time the words “agreement” and “North Korea” are used in the same sentence is to think “bullshit.” That wasn’t the case this time around, however — not because the joint declaration isn’t bullshit, but because something else popped into mind first.

That something else being, “Gee, this a whole lot of stuff to dump on Lee Myung-bak when he moves into Cheong Wa Dae next year.”

An unpopular, lame-duck president has gone to North Korea just ahead of the presidential election and essentially locked the next president into a course of action. If Lee wins the election — and the smart money’s on that he will — he won’t be able to conduct a serious review of North Korea policy without looking like the bad guy.

So far, Lee has responded to the “peace declaration” by praising Roh and Kim’s efforts toward building peace on the peninsula, but expressing disappointment that the nuclear issue, separated families, POWs and abductees were not discussed. This has pretty much been the reaction of the GNP as a whole. Deep inside, however, they have to be livid, because Roh has virtually taken North Korea policy off the table as a matter for debate, unless the GNP wants to pay the political costs of reneging on agreements with Pyongyang.