N. Korea demands withdrawal of sanctions in return for talks

North Korea has demanded Thursday that South Korea and the United States withdraw their sanctions on the North if they want to have dialogue with Pyongyang. After the South’s Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae offered talks with the North last Thursday, Pyongyang has been making comprehensive demands such as an “apology for hostile acts” and a “halt to war preparations.” The latest statement by the North draws attention because it mentions a specific condition for talks for the first time.

The policy bureau of the North’s National Defense Commission has said in a statement Thursday that the U.S. call on the North to show its will for denuclearization as a precondition for talks is just another provocation. The North has stipulated the following conditions: (To resume talks, the U.S. and South Korea) stop all provocations and apologize for them, promise to not conduct exercises for a nuclear war, and withdraw all war making capabilities from the South and its surrounding areas. "Sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council against us must be rescinded, and (Seoul and Washington) must remember that this will be a good-willed clue leading to us," it has also claimed. “Fabrications of truth, such as blaming the North for the sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010 and the recent Internet hacking of financial institutions and media have to be immediately discontinued.”

The North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) has also dismissed the South’s offer of dialogue, arguing that it is “nothing but an empty talk” that lacks an apology for colluding with foreign forces for a nuclear war against the North. “As long as hostile acts and plots for a war against the North continue, there will never be a North-South dialogue or any improvement of North-South relations,” the committee said.

In response, a South Korean government official has expressed regret that Pyongyang is passing the responsibility for the tensions between the two Koreas to Seoul and is proposing a precondition for talks. The official urged the North to “stop provocative actions and take (Seoul’s) offer of talks sincerely at least in order to address the pain felt by (South Korean) companies operating in the North’s Kaesong Industrial Complex. Seoul’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Tai-young told a news briefing, “North Korea`s argument is totally incomprehensible. It is just illogical.”

Eight additional South Korean workers at the Kaesong industrial complex have returned to the South on Thursday, the 15th day after the North imposed an entry ban on South Koreans. As of midnight on Friday, 197 South Korean workers and one Chinese national are staying at the inter-Korean industrial complex. Reportedly, they are suffering from lack of daily necessities to the extent that they pick wild herbs to make side dishes.

Meanwhile, there is a possibility that humanitarian aid to the impoverished North will continue despite the high tensions, as members at a private South Korean Christian charity group Eugene Bell arrived in North Korea on Thursday. Eight personnel including Eugene Bell Chairman Stephen Linton have entered Pyongyang via a North Korea flight from Beijing. They are scheduled to return to the South around May 10 after delivering tuberculosis medicines and treating patients. All of them are foreign nationals, who do not need approval from the South Korean government for entry into the North.

shcho@donga.com