By Kim Tae-gyu
North Korea invited South Korean civic groups to hold an event at either Gaeseong or Mt. Geumgang next month to celebrate the 13th anniversary of the June 15 South-North Joint Declaration in 2000.
The South Korean committee established to realize the five-point declaration said Thursday that its counterpart in the North made the proposal through fax Wednesday.
The late former President Kim Dae-jung and late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il met in June 2000 and made the landmark declaration that brought about a reconciliatory mood on the Korean Peninsula.
“We first suggested a joint event. In response, the North Korean committee presented a counter offer of holding one in Gaeseong or Mt. Geumgang,” an official of the committee said.
“It said the only way to normalize inter-Korean relations is to realize the June 15 declaration. It requested the two countries to keep the spirit of the declaration alive.”
The Ministry of Unification said the government will make a decision on the North Korean offer after taking all the related factors into consideration.
The committees of the two countries had held a joint event since 2001 every June 15 until 2008 when the conservative former President Lee Myung-bak took office.
Observers pointed out that the North Korean proposal does not represent the regime’s shift from a belligerent mode to a peaceful one because it opted for a private entity, not the government, to communicate with.
“It is the North’s traditional strategy of trying to cooperate with the private sector of South Korea to estrange the government,” said Chang Yong-seok, an analyst at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies affiliated with Seoul National University.
“But of note is that the North picked Gaeseong as one of two candidate sites for the proposed event. That shows that the country is ready to open the route toward Gaeseong to normalize it.”
The inter-Korean joint industrial park there was one of the results achieved through the June 15 declaration, but it was shut down last month amid escalating tension on the peninsula.
Jang added that the real improvement in the relationship of the two Koreas will materialize only when Pyongyang accepts or proposes dialogue with Seoul.
“If Pyongyang hints at the possibility of high-level or working-level talks with Seoul on specific topics, it means something,” said Jang who worked as a presidential aide for former President Roh Moo-hyun.
Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s special envoy Vice Marshall Choe Ryong-hae reportedly met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and handed over a letter from Kim.
A South Korean government official said that Beijing had tipped Seoul off in advance that the special envoy would visit, Wednesday, which experts said shows improved relations between South Korea and China.