North Korea threatened to bar South Korean personnel and their vehicles from
crossing the border Wednesday if the South resumes propaganda broadcasts near
the border as it announced earlier this week.
In an apparent move to show its toughness, the North deported South Koreans
working at the inter-Korean cooperation office at the joint Gaeseong Industrial
Complex.
The series of measures were construed as a sign that the North will keep the option of closing the complex in the event that Seoul continues to pressure Pyongyang. Pyongyang also threatened to sever a hotline between the liaison offices at Panmunjeom and communication links between maritime authorities of the two sides. North Korea, however, gave the green light to South Koreans working at the complex to cross the border for work Wednesday morning.
A former professor of the Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang said the two measures - issuing threats over inter-Korean relations, while allowing Gaeseong workers to cross the border - were the North's carefully calculated moves aimed at serving its best interests.
"After President Lee Myung-bak took office, North Korea set twin goals regarding
how to deal with the South," Cho Myung-chul, a research fellow at the state-run
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, told The Korea Times over the
phone.
"One was to take punitive actions against the Lee administration as the conservative leader has stood firm on his reciprocity-based North Korea policy. The other was to earn as much cash as it can from the South through joint economic projects."
According to the expert, the two-track approach has been applied to the communist state's recent reactions to the South after a multinational investigation team concluded that North Korea torpedoed the South Korean Navy ship Cheonan on March 26, killing 46 sailors.
North Korea denied its role in the maritime disaster, dismissing the investigation
results as "fabrications."
In a speech televised nationwide Monday, President Lee sent a clear message that South Korea will say good-bye to the decade-long "sunshine policy" of engaging North Korea by announcing a set of containment measures.
Seoul is working on China and Russia, two permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC), to convince them to support its plan to slap further sanctions on the North at an international level.
China, however, remains uncooperative. North Korea's closest ally repeated that
peace and security on the Korean Peninsula were important, hinting that it will not take the South's side.
On Tuesday, Pyongyang said that it would cut all ties with the South, and no
contacts or dialogue will take place in the near future. It also said it will not allow South Korean ships and planes to use its territorial waters
and airspace. Experts said inter-Korean relations couldn't be worse.
Asked if the current standoff could lead to war, Cho said he was skeptical of the
prospect. He also predicted that it would be improbable for North Korea to rely on provocative acts, such as missile launches or a third nuclear test.
"Firing missiles or conducting an underground nuclear test requires a nation to
prepare for at least six months or longer. So far, there have been no such signs," he said.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/include/print.asp?newsIdx=66566
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