The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Pyongyang, North Korea— South Korea and North Korea on Saturday agreed to hold their first high-level talks in nearly a year at the border village of Panmunjom to defuse mounting tensions that have pushed the rivals to the brink of a possible military confrontation.
The meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. (Seoul time), came 30 minutes after the deadline set by North Korea for South Korea to dismantle loudspeakers broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda at their border. North Korea has declared its frontline troops are in full war readiness and prepared to go to battle if Seoul doesn’t back down.
The South Korean presidential office said its national security director Kim Kwan-jin and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo will sit down with Hwang Pyong-so, the top political officer for the Korean People’s Army and considered by outside analysts to be North Korea’s second most important official after Supreme Leader Kim Jong- un, and Kim Yang-gon, a secretary of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and a senior official responsible for South Korean affairs.
The meeting came as a series of incidents, starting with the North’s alleged land mine attack that maimed two South Korean soldiers and the South’s resumption of anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts, raised fears that the conflict could spiral out of control.
An official from South Korea’s Defense Ministry, who didn’t want to be named, citing office rules, said the South will continue with the anti-Pyongyang border broadcasts until the end of North Korea’s deadline, but said a decision has yet to be made whether to continue with the broadcasts if the high-level meeting goes on as planned.
In Pyongyang, businesses were open as usual and street stalls selling ice cream were crowded as residents took breaks under parasols from the summer sun. There were no visible signs of increased security measures, though the city is even under normal situations heavily secured and fortified. More than 240 South Koreans entered a jointly-run industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.
The North’s state-run media has strongly ratcheted up its rhetoric, saying the whole nation is bracing for the possibility of an all-out war. Kim Jong-un has been shown repeatedly on TV news broadcasts leading a strategy meeting with the top military brass to review the North’s attack plan and young people are reportedly swarming to recruitment centers to sign up to join the fight.
“We have exercised our self-restraint for decades,” the North’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement last Friday. “Now, no one’s talk about self-restraint is helpful to putting the situation under control. The army and people of the DPRK are poised not just to counteract or make any retaliation, but not to rule out all-out war to protect the social system, their own choice, at the risk of their lives.”
People were willing to talk about the tension and, as is common in public in North Korea—officially called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—they voiced support for their government’s policies and their leader. They also used phrases like “puppet gangsters” to refer to South Korean authorities, as these are everyday terms in the North, in state media and conversation.
“I think that the South Korean puppet gangsters should have the clear idea that thousands of our people and soldiers are totally confident in winning at any cost because we have our respected leader with us,” said Pyongyang citizen Choe Sin-ae.
It was not clear if North Korea meant to attack immediately, if at all, but South Korea has vowed to continue the broadcasts, which it recently restarted after an 11-year stoppage after accusing Pyongyang of planting land mines that maimed two South Korean soldiers earlier this month.
Four US F-16 fighter jets and four F-15k South Korean fighter jets simulated bombings, starting on South Korea’s eastern coast and moving toward the US base at Osan, near Seoul, officials said.
South Korea’s military last Thursday fired dozens of artillery rounds across the border in response to what Seoul said were North Korean artillery strikes meant to back up a threat to attack the loudspeakers.
US-based experts on North Korea said the land mine blast and last week’s shelling were the most serious security incidents at the border since Kim Jong-un came to power after the 2011 death of his father, Kim Jong -il. The country was founded by Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, Kim II-sung.
“If Kim Jong-il or Kim Il-sung was in charge, I would say that leadership in North Korea would recognize that South Korea has responded in kind to an attack and it’s time to stand down. But I’m not sure Kim Jong-un understands the rules of the game established by his father and grandfather on how to ratchet up tensions and then ratchet them down. I’m not sure if he knows how to de-escalate,” said Evans Revere, a former senior State Department official on East Asia. AP