Position of DPRK Foreign Ministry to
Speak to the U.S. and Rule South Korea Out
and Possible Response of South Korea
No. 2019-21 (2019.07.27)
Dr. Cheong Seong-Chang
Vice President of Research and Planning at Sejong Institute
On June 27, Kwon Jong Gun, director-general of the Department of American Affairs of the DPRK Foreign Ministry, announced a statement saying, “if U.S.-DPRK dialogue is to be held, the U.S. must present the right method of calculation and the deadline is until the end of this year,” and demanded the U.S. to alter its policy toward North Korea. Mr. Kwon also stated that, “even if we were to talk to the U.S., negotiations can only be held if there is a proper attitude and a wholesome alternative.” As such, the North Korean Foreign Ministry is not doing its best to find an alternative for itself, refusing to find contacts through practical negotiations with the U.S., but unilaterally demanding the U.S. to present alternatives. However, this is not an autonomous attitude, but a very U.S. dependent position.
Kwon Jong Gun also said, “the parties to the U.S.-DPRK dialogue are literally ourselves (North Korea) and the U.S., and even when viewed as the origin of the hostile relations between the two countries, there is no issue for South Korea to interfere,” and expressed his reluctance toward a dialogue with South Korea. Mr. Kwon then said, “we will contact the U.S. directly using the communication channel that has already been in operation, and even when we negotiate, North Korea and the U.S. will sit in front of each other, meaning we will never go through South Korea,” and reaffirmed his strict exclusionary position against South Korea.
In this way, Kwon Jong Gun’s “tong-mi-bae-nam (通美排南),” which menas to speak only with the U.S. and rule South Korea out, is a demonstration of North Korean Foreign Ministry’s “sadaejuui (flunkyism)” and anti-ethnic attitude despite its official position to oppose the “U.S. imperialism.” This position of DPRK shows the result of internal shifts of denuclearization negotiation initiative from the United Front Department of the Worker’s Party of Korea Central Committee (WPKCC) to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
As a well-known fact, Singapore U.S.-DPRK Summit in June 2018 could not be realized without the active support of the South Korean government. It was President Moon Jae-in who first suggested U.S.-DPRK summit during the visit of Kim Yo-jong, the first vice director of WPKCC, and Kim Yong-chol, director of United Front Department, in February of last year when North Korea was unable to even imagine a summit meeting with the U.S.; who directly communicated with President Donald Trump about Kim Jong-un’s intention to hold a summit in March; who spoke to Kim Jong-un at Panmunjom to reopen the summit when President Trump said he would cancel the Singapore summit in May.
In addition, President Moon was able to re-ignite the dialogue when the first U.S.-DPRK high-level talks held after the Singapore Summit had collapsed and the U.S.-DPRK relationship had rapidly cooled down. Despite such history, Director Kwon is now asserting, “the relationship between North Korea and the U.S. is based on the friendship between our Chairman of the State Affairs Commission (SAC) [Kim Jung-un] and President Trump,” and attempting to exclude South Korea from the dialogue. It is in fact an extremely ungrateful act.
The two Koreas have already confirmed their “common goal of achieving a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula through a complete denuclearization,” at the Panmunjom Inter-Korean Summit on April 27 of last year. And agreed to “actively endeavor to support and cooperate with the international community for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
Furthermore, the North and South Korean leaders also agreed to “work closely together in the process of pursuing the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” through the Pyongyang Joint Declaration of September 2018. The statement of Director Kwon directly denies the agreements made between the two leaders and is simply ignoring the authority of North Korea’s supreme leader and dismissing Kim’s credibility of keeping his promises.
Therefore, if Kim Jong-un is genuinely willing to improve inter-Korean relations as well as U.S.-DPRK relations, it will be necessary to replace such personnel who on the surface seem to be anti-American, but in reality are anti-ethnic with US toadying attitude with someone who is more nationalistic and active in negotiations on external affairs.
The direction in which North Korean Foreign Ministry should proceed is not to refuse to talk with South Korea but to schedule denuclearization negotiations with the U.S. in close consultation with the Blue House and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Korea. Current attitude of North Korea to face the U.S. superpower alone without South Korea’s cooperation at first may seem as a very bold action, but in reality it would further deepen North Korea’s diplomatic isolation and delay progress of the U.S.-DPRK negotiations.
If Kim Jong-eun truly desires to achieve the complete denuclearization and the establishment of new peace regime on the Korean peninsula, the normalization of U.S.-DPRK relations, and the lifting of entire sanctions against North Korea and to create a more secure and prosperous North Korea through negotiations with the U.S., then he should not leave negotiation solely to obsequius officials of Foreign Ministry. In future, North Korea should inlcude not only officials of Foreign Ministry but also those of United Front Department and International Affairs Department of WPKCC in its negotiation team for close communication with the U.S. and other countries, such as South Korea and China.
For the South to gain its respect and not be ignored by the North, the South Korean government should create an actual and substantial contribution to the success of denuclearization negotiations by proposing a draft of an agreement, which both the U.S. and North Korea have yet failed to present, through a full usage of knowledge and wisdom of domestic experts. Drafting a comprehensive timetable for North Korea's denuclearization and the U.S. countermeasures is impossible with only a handful of experts and bureaucrats. Therefore, Moon Administration should go beyond the partition of conservative and progressive and bring together the competence of all authoritative experts in this field to prepare alternatives for both North Korea and the U.S.
Under the circumstance of North Korea refusing to talk with South Korea, Moon Administration should not be caught up in trying to hold an inter-Korean summit, but rather be more focused on creating a comprehensive and concrete consensus among domestic parties on how the U.S. and North Korea should proceed with the denuclearization negotiations in the future. The South Korean government has agreed to proceed with “declaration of the end of war” at the inter-Korean summit held in April of 2018 without domestic nor U.S. consent. A series of severe domestic conflicts and international conflicts between ROK-China, U.S.-DPRK, ROK-U.S. show the need for sufficient consultation and communication among domestic experts and prior consensus with the U.S. before the inter-Korean talks.
Through President Moon’s persuasion of Chairman Kim at the Pyongyang Summit in last September, Kim had expressed his view that he is willing to consider a permanent dismantlement of Yongbyon nuclear facility in spirit of the U.S.-DPRK Joint Statement of June 2018 only if the U.S. takes action in accordance with North Korea. At the Hanoi Summit, however, when the U.S. called for the “dismantlement of Yongbyon nuclear facility +α,” North Korea was not ready for additional measures and the negotiation broke down. Such reality suggests that only when the U.S. and South Korea agree on a large-scale framework of denuclearization negotiations prior to other inter-Korean dialogues, both inter-Korean talks and the U.S.-DPRK talks can make a virtuous cycle.
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