Global Security Newswire

North Korea on Thursday offered a number of conditions for improved relations with South Korea, including the termination of Seoul's bilateral military maneuvers with the United States, the New York Times reported. The South rejected the demands as "absurd" (see GSN, Feb. 1).

Many of Pyongyang's conditions have been previously dismissed by Seoul. Renewing the requirements seemed to be an attempt to divert criticism from the United States that Pyongyang has caused the present state of poor inter-Korean relations, according to the newspaper.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell on Wednesday said the Obama administration was open to engagement with the Stalinist state, but only after it first bolstered relations with South Korea. More dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington is seen as a key stepping stone toward relaunching the six-nation negotiations on North Korean denuclearization.

North Korea's powerful National Defense Commission released the nine conditions. They include eliminating South Korea's communism-opposing National Security Law and calling off U.S.-South Korean military exercises -- demands made in the past -- along with fresher calls for Seoul to cease rebuking the North for the November 2010 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island and that South Korean President Lee Myung-bak show regret for not issuing a formal sympathy message to the North after the December death of longtime dictator Kim Jong Il.

Inter-Korean relations have lagged since Lee came to power in early 2008 and ordered that aid to his nation's impoverished neighbor be sharply curtailed due to North Korea's failure to implement promised nuclear disarmament actions.

"The Lee Myung-bak clique of traitors should stop babbling about improving ties and reflect upon whether it deserves to be a dialogue partner," the National Defense Commission said.

An unidentified official at the South Korean Unification Ministry responded that, "our government doesn't think it necessary to take pains to respond to these issues raised by the North. It's regrettable that North Korea makes these absurd demands as part of its propaganda" (Choe Sang-hun, New York Times, Feb. 2).

Pyongyang is prepared to hold discussions with Seoul as soon as it provides transparent responses to North Korea's demands, National Defense Commission Col. Ri Son Kwon told the Associated Press.

"If clear answers are given, dialogue will resume immediately," Ri said. "The resumption of dialogue and the improvement of relations hinge completely on the willingness of the South's government."

Yonsei University academic John Delury said North Korea's release of conditions was actually "a bit of an olive branch" when compared with earlier pledges to have nothing more to do with the Lee administration.

"The statement is meant primarily to pull the fig leaf off the South Korean government's claims that it is open to dialogue. Pyongyang is trying to call Seoul's bluff by claiming South Korea is the intransigent one," he said.

"It appears North Korea is cooling off after being infuriated at South Korea during the mourning period for Kim Jong Il," Dongguk University professor Koh Yu-hwan said. "North Korea understands its relations with South Korea should improve for progress in its relations with the United States" (Associated Press/New York Times, Feb. 2).

Meanwhile, a South Korean think tank that receives government financing has aggravated the Foreign Ministry with a new analysis that calls for the North to be tacitly dealt with as a nuclear-armed country, the Chosun Ilbo reported.

The South Korean government  "cannot recognize the North as a nuclear state officially, but the stark reality is that the North is a nuclear state from a strategic point of view," according to the report by the Korea Institute for National Unification. Seoul has no other option "but to formulate strategies toward the North and implement North Korea policy based on this reality," the analysis says.

A high-ranking Foreign Ministry official rejected the report's recommendations: "The moment we recognize the North as a nuclear state, all the rules of the game will change. Such a proposal shouldn't be made by a government agency."

Though North Korea is understood to have enough plutonium to fuel about six weapons and is enriching uranium to unknown levels, the aspiring nuclear power is not believed to have yet miniaturized nuclear warheads for fielding on missiles. The North has conducted two nuclear tests to date.

"Both the U.N. Security Council sanctions against the North and the six-party nuclear talks were based on the criticism that the North was trying to implement a nuclear program" and had not yet acquired a reliable nuclear deterrent, a different Foreign Ministry official said.

Report co-author Cho Min said the think tank "did not mean to recommend recognizing the North as a nuclear state contrary to the government's position. We just meant we should work out strategies based on the belief that the North has nuclear materials that are threatening us" (Chosun Ilbo, Feb. 2).