(EDITORIAL from the Korea Herald on Aug. 21)

Funeral diplomacy

Pyongyang has decided to send a high-powered delegation to the state funeral of
former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, setting the stage for a possible
thawing of inter-Korean relations. It looks as if Kim, lying in state, was
promoting reconciliation between the rival Koreas, as he did when he was alive.

Kim's funeral, scheduled for Sunday, can hardly be the right occasion for
high-profile inter-Korean diplomacy. But Kim would not object to low-key contacts
aimed at facilitating a breakthrough in the long-lasting standoff.
Kim Dae-jung is credited for bringing South and North Korea closer through his
summit with Kim Jong-il in 2000. But the two Koreas have remained estranged since
a conservative government was installed in the South under President Lee
Myung-bak in February last year.
Pyongyang's decision to send a funeral delegation to the South, however, is yet
another development that may help improve inter-Korean relations. The communist
state has recently taken a series of affirmative measures toward the South,
including an invitation to the head of the Hyundai Group to visit Pyongyang.
During her visit to Pyongyang last week, the Hyundai Group chairwoman won the
release of a Hyundai employee detained since March. She later met with Kim
Jong-il who agreed, among other things, to resume the suspended tourism of South
Koreans to Mount Geumgang and the halted reunions of families separated by the
1950-53 Korean War.
Her agreements with Kim Jong-il, however, are by no means binding to the South
Korean government. Concluding such agreements is actually beyond her purview. If
any of them is to be implemented, it needs approval by the relevant authorities
of South and North Korea.
Against this backdrop, South Korea proposed inter-Korean Red Cross talks to the
North next week to arrange the reunions of separated families around the Oct. 3
Chuseok holiday. Reuniting separated families has been a humanitarian project of
great concern to the South Korean government. As such, the impoverished North has
often used it in the past as leverage in obtaining concessions from the South.
Presumably, Kim Jong-il had the resumption of South Korean tourist visits to
Mount Geumgang in mind when he referred to family reunions. Hyundai's tourism
project had been one of the few sources of hard currency for the North until the
South suspended it when North Korean soldiers shot to death a South Korean woman
who apparently strayed into an off-limits area in the mountain in July last year.

Another likely issue of concern to the North is the provision of food and other
types of aid by the South Korean government. Talks on direct aid have been
suspended since the North declined the South Korean government's offer to provide
50,000 tons of corn last year.
The Food and Agriculture Organization has recently warned that North Korea's food
shortage will continue to worsen, making it necessary to secure more than 1.7
million tons from abroad this year. But the South Korean government, which has
recently eased restrictions on aid via non-governmental organizations, says it
will withhold direct assistance until the North asks for it.
When a North Korean delegation visits Seoul to pay homage to the late President
Kim Dae-jung, it will have an opportunity to meet with South Korean officials and
take up where Kim Jong-il's talks with the Hyundai chairwoman left off. It would
be nothing but an act of sheer folly to pass up such an opportunity.
The North needs the South more than the South needs the North. But it does not
necessarily mean the South should withhold humanitarian aid indefinitely.
Instead, it may well take the initiative, reach out to the North and renew its
offer to provide food aid when the North Korean delegation arrives in Seoul,
reportedly for an overnight stay.
(END)