"All contacts are stopped. We had expected North Korea to take up the process again, but they haven't," says South Korea's foreign minister Han Seung-soo. Since Pyongyang left the negotiations last March, not much has been happening diplomatically between the two estranged Koreas. Many explanations are given for the stalemate, it really depends on who you ask.
For some, the hardening of the US position after the change of government in Washington is the main cause for the collapse of the Sunshine policy. Others argue, a lack of domestic support for Kim Dae-jung's strategy of engaging the North is responsible. And then, of course, there are always those who load all the responsibility on the North Koreans, who -- according to this school of thought -- are once more showing their true face. As with most things, I believe, the truth is somewhere in the middle, with all three factors taken together responsible for the present all but jolly state of inter-Korean relations.
In the eyes of the South Korean government, one person could cut the Gordian knot. And this one person is no other than Kim Jong-il himself.
A South Korean journalist has counted eight instances at which President Kim Dae-jung reminded his North Korean counterpart in public to make true his promise and commit himself to coming to Seoul for the much-aspired reciprocal visit. Kim Dae-jung has good reasons to be impatient: with his presidency slowly but surely moving toward the end, it is understandable that he desires to carry on the historic process of national reconciliation kicked of so triumphantly at the first inter-Korean summit in mid-June of last year. On the other hand, Kim Jong-il -- so far at least -- has not broken his promise: the Joint Declaration, in which his return visit is mentioned, stipulates that this should take place "at an appropriate time." Quite obviously, the North Korean at this very moment does not deem the conditions appropriate.
Meanwhile, the Dear Leader's visit has developed into the dominant issue of South Korean domestic politics, overshadowing, yes, poisoning, once more the relations between the political parties in the year ahead of the crucial presidential elections.
South Koreans have gotten accustomed to politically instigated conspiracy theories. In this specific case, the inventors of the political plot have invested extraordinary fantasy: The main opposition party and with it an influential segment of the media allege that the controversial media tax probe is guided by the aim to discipline certain hardcore conservative newspapers that have repeatedly voiced opposition against Kim Jong-il's visit.
"The massive tax probe of news media is to silence the dailies that bare critical to the governments efforts to lay the groundwork of the Seoul visit," one could read recently in an editorial of one Seoul daily. This is a serious accusation, which -- should it prove accurate -- would force all democrats to go to the barricades. But then, nothing substantiates the claim, that the freedom of expression of the conservative gazettes has been curtailed. Hardly a day goes by, without these media attacking with poisonous prose (and not always convincing arguments) the North Korea-policy of the government.
More recently, a new chapter in the seemingly endless plot was opened, when one right-wing paper published a document according to which the main governing party plans to amend the Constitution with the aim of prolonging its rule after a successful visit of the North Korean leader. One should note, the government has denied also this allegation. The politician charged with having written the incriminated script for a constitutional coup detat has filed a defamation suit against the paper.
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